


The Long Emergency

by murderbot



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Illness, Other, PTSD, Past Sexual Abuse, Queerplatonic Relationships, Repressed Memories, Trauma, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 55,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29890989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderbot/pseuds/murderbot
Summary: AU: Trapped on the survey planet when the last emergency beacon fails, Murderbot and the PreservationAux team scramble to survive deadly fauna, cruel weather, scarce resources, and GreyCris's armed hunting parties. In a gruelling ordeal spanning two planetary years, Murderbot becomes closer to its humans than it ever thought possible.
Relationships: Dr. Mensah & Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Gurathin/Murderbot
Comments: 64
Kudos: 24





	1. Beacon Failure

**Author's Note:**

> BIG WARNING SIGN: Yes, you read the tags right. This story has a Murderbot/Gurathin subplot, featuring (non-explicit) sexual content. If you think this will upset you, please do not read this story. The relationship doesn't start until midway through Chapter 4, if you want to read the rest and stop at that point.

unit offline

I opened my eyes. I was in the little hopper. Gurathin and Pin-Lee were leaning over me, tools in hand, trying to make repairs to a part of my chest that was blown open and burned.

Pin-Lee looked scared and upset. Gurathin looked pissed off, as though getting half-roasted by the emergency beacon's take-off had been part of a plan to personally insult and inconvenience him. Fuck you too, Gurathin.

I heard Mensah say, "We're almost there, — "

unit offline

I woke up in the dark. Something was wrong. My performance reliability was only at 30%. We were still in the hopper. Mensah was sitting beside me, holding my hand. I don't know if that was supposed to comfort me or her. Her injured arm was cradled in a sling. Why hadn’t anyone fixed it properly yet?

I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, some garbage automatic message would spill out, so I tapped Mensah's feed and asked, _How long has it been? Is everyone okay? Aren't they here yet?_ The company should be tripping over their own feet to get here by now.

Her expression got even tighter. I could tell she was working hard to keep her composure.

_We're okay. But help isn't coming. The beacon malfunctioned - it exploded before it could reach the atmosphere._

Fucking.

Cheap. 

Company.

Equipment.

Then I think I must've passed out from rage.

unit offline

I woke up in a cubicle. This time my performance reliability had reached its maximum level. Then I remembered what Mensah had told me.

I shoved open the cubicle door, startling Ratthi, who was standing right outside. The skin under his eyes looked dark, probably from sleep deprivation. Not acutely fatal, but if they were all like that, it could be a big problem. Humans made stupid mistakes when they underslept, and we needed to think sharp and fast.

I looked around.

"You brought me to the DeltFall habitat?"

Ratthi nodded. "Pin-Lee and Gurathin said they could hack the cubicle. Company equipment, like you said. It's all the same."

Volescu and Overse jogged past in the corridor outside the room, hefting equipment.

"You were in bad shape," Ratthi continued, handing me a soft uniform to put on over my half-shredded skinsuit. He looked so relieved to see me now, with all of my insides on the inside. "We were all so worried you wouldn't make it here." That was another shitty thing about humans and lack of sleep — their emotions tended to spill all over the place.

I reviewed the footage I had of the beacon blast. Those SecUnits were crispy fried, and GreyCris would be down three humans in the blast, too - Blue Leader, Yellow, and Green. But they still had one SecUnit left, and we had no reason to believe that the new commander of their operation would be any less ruthless than the last one. We could only hope there was some internecine shuffling and backstabbing about who would take control of the local survey.

Very soon, no matter who took control, they'd be hunting for us. If I were hunting us, this is one of the first places I'd go.

They'd taken an incredible risk by coming here to repair me. I tried not to have an emotion about that. They must hane known I'm their best chance of surviving this mess. But my attempt at misdirecting myself didn't work. I knew by the flashes of memory of the trip here. I knew just by looking at Ratthi. They actually cared about me, and I was just going to have to live with that.

Mensah tapped my feed.

 _SecUnit, we have fifty kilos of weight allotted for security supplies, or anything else you think we might need._ She sent me an inventory of the supplies they'd already collected, and the cargo space still available. (I liked that I wasn't listed as being part of the supplies, but I also liked being transported alone with the supplies so I didn't have to talk to anyone. There's a conundrum, right there.)

They'd managed to hack into one of DeltFall's little hoppers. The plan was to bring it with us, so we'd have three hoppers in total. Good. I knew humans had weird feelings about taking things from other humans who were dead. I was glad Mensah had the sense to realize that our situation was desperate. In order to tell anyone the truth of how the DeltFall humans had died, first we’d have to survive being hunted by GreyCris. For that, we’d need all the resources we could get.

_I sent Ratthi to help you carry supplies, but I need you to watch him. I think he might be going into shock._

Yeah, that was a possibility. They shouldn't have let him come in here. There were still a lot of dead bodies, and seeing them on a camera is different from seeing them in real life. 

_Got it._

I looked at Ratthi, letting him make eye contact. It wasn't so bad if I knew it was necessary.

"Help me carry this stuff, and we'll be out of here soon. We'll be fine, okay? Dr. Mensah has a great plan." I was sure she had a plan, and whatever it was, it was great.

Ratthi nodded and smiled like he believed me. "Yeah. Okay."

I did a quick scan of the room. DeltFall's security ready room, almost identical to the one in the PreservationAux habitat, except bigger. I knew where everything would be stored.

The first thing I pulled out was a big case of drones, nestled in their little foam beds. If I could, I'd take fifty kilos of these. There must be a way to hack them to respond to our systems. It was worth bringing them to find out.

I gave the drones to Ratthi while I took up a case filled with weapons, ammo, and explosives, as well as a couple of spare skin suits and a new set of armour.

We couldn't bring the cubicle, or Mensah would've already packed it. This might be the last time I'd see one for a long time.

Ratthi looked like he'd calmed down a bit.

"Good?"

He nodded.

"Let's go."

The hopper engines had already started. Less than two minutes after the end of my repair cycle, we were in the air.

**

We flew through the dark. I tapped the hoppers’ cameras to review the recordings of the hours I’d missed. They must've really punched it all the way here. Our last trip to the DeltFall habitat had taken over sixteen hours, and they’d made the trip in less than half that time.

They’d already decided on a spot to park the hoppers. It was a dense jungle, the same as our first hiding spot, thick with trees and greenery and fauna to hide us from sight and life-sign detectors. The hazard report indicated several dangerous species of fauna that had been observed on the continent, but nothing big enough to damage the hoppers. We wouldn’t be staying long.

Fleeing the GreyCris habitat, tired, hungry, injured, and dangerously stressed, Mensah and the others had collaborated over the comm to sketch out a rough plan for survival.

We were going to run and hide. Couldn't have thought of a better plan myself. This planet was a big haystack, and we were a small needle. It would take GreyCris a long time to sift through it all.

Once they’d arrived at DeltFall, it had been a mad scramble to hack the cubicle, the hopper, and the MedSystem to download as much of it as they could, and dig out all the equipment and supplies they thought they’d need.

Now they needed time to eat and sleep, and hopefully calm down. In the morning, with clear heads, we would need to make careful preparations.

We had to strategize. Figure out better ways to hide. Move around. Find ways for to survive without leaving a recognizable trace.

For the moment we had the luxury of just parking the hoppers in any spot where we could hide in the hoppers for a few days. The chances GreyCris would find us right away were really low.

The chances they'd find us grew exponentially the longer we stayed.

We needed to plan to survive for as long as we could, and _I_ needed to figure out what we would do if/when GreyCris caught up to us.

**

The first three day-cycles were the worst of our entire trip. Even worse than the one Bharadwaj and I were torn to shreds by Hostile One. (We all called these the first three cycles, even though we'd been on the planet for awhile now. Everything before was something else. This was the real shit.)

That was because the first three cycles involved imagining every possible way GreyCris might come hunting for us, every possible thing that might give us away, and then trying to figure out how to deal with all of that.

I made an orderly list. I'm just like that. I tried to imagine what I'd do if I needed to kill a group of eight humans and one SecUnit, hiding somewhere on a planet with three hoppers and limited supplies.

It was a pretty long list. GreyCris plausibly had access to many kinds of visual/audio/energy sensors. We would have to hide from them all.

We also had to figure out how we could get the resources we would need to survive here, once our stores ran out: food, clean water, purified air, controlled temperature, all the necessary human things.

I could survive for hundreds of thousands of hours on my energy cell. I'd be okay.

The humans could all die from exposure to temperatures even a few grades out from their planetary ranges. They could be killed by hungry fauna or toxic flora. Every microbial presence on the planet was a danger.

The company-supplied habitats were cheap and mass produced, but they provided comprehensive life support for the humans who needed to inhabit them. We didn't even have those anymore.

We had three hoppers and all the supplies they could carry.

While I was making orderly lists and sending them to Mensah, the rest of the humans were freaking out. To them, every single nightmare scenario would cause actual nightmares. 

It didn't matter that every day we made progress addressing everything on my list. None of the preparations made them feel any better. By the end of the three cycles, I added 'mental health crisis caused by acute stress' to the list of seriously threatening dangers, and I started watching them carefully for signs of psychosis.

**

At the end of the third cycle, Mensah and I sat together in the cockpit of the big hopper, which we'd designated Hopper One. The others were either sleeping or trying to sleep, huddled on the floor of the hoppers.

We put the finishing touches on the first version of a comprehensive survival plan. Everyone had given their input, and we'd included every scenario we could think of. As soon as everyone woke up, Mensah was going to present it to the whole team. That would kick off our move to the location we’d carefully chosen, where we would establish our first long-term camp.

Mensah asked, “Anything else you can think of? I mean _anything_." Eyes closed, she leaned her head back against the pilot's seat.

I skimmed over the plan again.

“No. It's good work. A solid plan. I think it'll make everyone feel better.”

“I hope so,” Mensah sighed wearily. “Thank you for helping me.” Then she opened her eyes but avoided looking directly at my face, which I appreciated.

She asked, “What about you? Will you be okay?”

“I'll be fine, Dr. Mensah. As long as I'm not too damaged.” Without access to a cubicle I’d have to be more careful with myself. We'd included a section on Basic First Aid for Murderbots (though it wasn’t called that) in the medical guide, and I wondered if I would ever get used to not being considered a piece of equipment. 

She said, “That's not what I mean." She took a moment to think about how to clarify. “The first time I asked you to sit with us in the crew area, you looked … appalled. Now, you're going to be in close proximity with us for a long time. I worry that it might get uncomfortable for you. We won't be able to help looking at you and talking to you. We're all going to be very close. Physically, and probably emotionally. It might be upsetting.”

“It's not so bad if it's an emergency. This counts as a long emergency.”

She took a long moment to consider this.

“Okay. But if you need anything, if you need space, or you need someone to run interference, or if you ever want help adjusting to this. Ask me. I don't know very much about SecUnits. Not as much as I should. But I'll try to help.”

I didn’t think there was any way to just make being around humans okay for me. I guess she could tell everyone to shut up and leave me alone. So far she'd been good at noticing when I needed that. Which was great because, despite her offer, I still wasn't sure how to ask for it myself.

“Okay.”

Then I did think about something that wouldn’t have been written in the survival manual.

“What about you, Dr. Mensah? Will you be okay?”

She said, “I'll be fine.”

I knew what that meant. She didn't want to show any weakness. She didn't want anyone to worry about her. But she was the linchpin of this group. If she started crumbling, the way I could see the others already starting to crumble, we'd be in bad trouble.

“This is going to be difficult for you too. You won't do anyone any favours by pretending to be fine if you're not. Is there anything I can do to help you”— I wanted to say 'keep your shit together.' “Is there anything I can do to help you cope?”

She smiled and lifted her hand, palm up. “You're doing it now.”

“Oh. What am I doing?” I thought maybe it was something about how I could think and talk about all the horrible ways we might die, and not get overwhelmed by anxiety (on the outside anyways). It was a valuable trait and I was kind of proud of it.

She said, “You asked. You noticed. You care. No human likes to feel alone.”

I could say that she wasn't going to get a moment alone for the next two years, but I knew what she really meant. As the team leader, she was kind of alone, but I made her feel less alone.

Wow. I think if she'd told that to me ten cycles ago, I would've made another appalled expression. That seemed like a big responsibility. And a weird thing to expect from a murderbot, especially this murderbot.

But like she said, I was doing it now. I did notice, and I did care. I couldn't not care. Humans tended to talk about caring in fuzzy, emotional terms, but sometimes caring was a simple matter of survival. Since humans were social creatures, sometimes survival and fuzzy emotions were linked. Sometimes the line was blurred. It felt blurry. But maybe it wasn't so scary after all. I could do this, I thought.

“Okay. I'm glad I can help you, Dr. Mensah.”

**

We all gathered in Hopper 1 after breakfast, when everyone was as rested and fed and as alert as they were going to get. The sun had gone down a couple of hours ago. We’d been travelling around the planet so much, their sleeping schedules had nothing to do with daylight hours anymore. This actually worked in our favour. We needed the cover of night to travel.

Mensah pushed the finished survival plan into the feed. I watched their faces with my drones while they took it in.

This was our situation:

GreyCris had gone to great lengths to prevent anyone from finding the evidence of alien remnants on this planet. We knew what they'd done. They’d have no reason to try and work out a deal.

They were out to kill us, Mensah included. They could easily think of more bullshit to cover it up. (Probably raiders, you could blame anything on raiders, they were way more common than rogue SecUnits.)

Based on what Pin-Lee and Gurathin had recorded from their helmet cameras when they’d snuck in close to the base, we had an approximate idea of their resources.

We could predict that GreyCris would be hunting us with a team consisting of one (or maybe two) SecUnits with armed human backup. Probably in a hopper. It wasn’t likely they’d bring in combat supplies or personnel from off-planet. That would almost certainly trigger a lot of pointed questions from the company, maybe even an immediate investigation. Luckily for us, they needed this to be a stealth operation.

Since GreyCris was supplied by the company, we knew more or less what kind of scanning capabilities they’d have, and we could work towards countering them. Mensah was way ahead of me there. A lot of the equipment they’d taken from DeltFall could be adapted to build several types of shielding.

Life signs and energy readings could be masked with the same shielding the habitats used to protect their proprietary data. We had dampeners to protect the hopper’s systems and our feed. Theoretically, they could even build an array that would project a limited camouflage field that would make us invisible to visual scans. That would be a real asset. I didn’t relish the idea of living entirely in the hoppers, or in a cave or an underground tunnel or something. That would be bad. No thanks.

We were going to set up a wide sensor array to alert us if we were being approached or scanned, it would give us enough warning to hide, or run, if we really needed to.

As for resources, they’d been sure to bring an over-abundance of power cells. We had enough to last for years.

We had enough meal pacs and emergency high-nutrient bars for a little over a hundred cycles. As soon as possible, they'd need to supplement their diets with nutrients gathered from the planet. They already had a list of edible plants they could gather and cultivate.

Their water and air filtration systems were robust. They’d need to replenish them with a few base elements that could easily be gathered on the planet.

We knew the air here wasn’t great, but it would take several planetary years for damage to accumulate. They had their suits and the limited oxygen those could provide. They were also going to filter the air in their sleeping areas. That should help.

The one thing that still scared everyone a little (even me) was the possible length of this operation.

PreservationAux’s planetary survey was supposed to last, at most, one hundred cycles, and we’d already been here for a quarter of that.

Since GreyCris had access to the habitat, it would be easy for them to send fake reports and request extensions for the survey. They could do the same for DeltFall.

PreservationAux’s contract with the company had a clause that allowed the survey to be extended to the maximum limit of seven hundred cycles. That’s the point at which the company would definitely come to the planet and start searching for us.

So.

It was possible that at any point, someone might notice their radio silence and send a ship to investigate. We might be rescued tomorrow. Maybe.

But this was the company we were dealing with. As long as they had no evidence we were in danger, those lazy fucks had no reason to care about what was happening to us.

We needed to be prepared to survive here on our own for as long as possible. 'As long as possible' being potentially two planetary years.

Yeah, our situation wasn’t great. We’d be in active danger until the company got off their lazy asses and sent the pick-up transport. But Mensah wasn’t panicking, so neither were they.

She asked, "Is everyone ready?" 

We were as ready as we’d ever be.

We split up into the hoppers. I sent a status request into the feed so I knew they were all accounted for. We lifted off to find our new long-term hiding spot.


	2. The First Camp

We settled on a coastal area. A cluster of tall islands jutted out from the ocean, almost a half kilometre high. It must've been a long waterfront cliff at some point, but now the rock formations had been eroded and separated by the water.

We picked the biggest island, though it wasn't that big — it would take an average human less than an hour to walk the circumference. It was lush with greenery, surrounded by forest and sandy beach.

We parked the hoppers on a rocky ledge, tucked just inside a natural cave formation at the base of the cliff. Hidden by trees and the islands looming around us, it was as close to perfect as we could find.

According to the hazard report, there were no Hostile Ones in this area. Some of the larger aquatic creatures in the ocean could be dangerous, but as long as we didn't venture out past the island cluster, they couldn't reach us.

I helped Arada stake a rudimentary visual/energy/life-signs shield at the mouth of the cave. Then the humans set up a common area where they could sit and eat and socialize. It was a relief for everyone to spend time outside of the hoppers.

Tomorrow we’d start setting up an expanded shielding array, so the humans could install the survival huts and venture out past the rocky ledge into the beach and the greenery and the water nearby.

As soon as they started eating, I left to patrol the surrounding area, hiding in the shade of the trees and the rocks. I didn’t think there was anything dangerous here, I just needed to get the hell away from them. I stood in a thick patch of greenery, watching media.

Mensah had been right, being in the presence of humans all night and day cycle was starting to wear on me already.

I hoped I could get used to it. If all went well, if we didn't die horribly, we'd be in each others' company for a while.

**

Now that we had different goals here (now that we'd be scrambling to survive), nobody could afford to just be a 'botanist' or a 'scientist'.

They needed to be their own self-sustaining community.

Mensah had initiated a long discussion about what they could do, what they were good at, and what they could learn given the limited information stored in the hoppers' systems.

Everyone was assigned a main duty.

Ratthi was in charge of feeding everyone, since he had a better grasp of human nutritional needs than anyone else. Right now that just involved heating up food pacs at mealtimes, but as soon as they were settled, he would need to start sourcing food from the surrounding environment. At some point plant cultivation would likely be necessary, and Mensah would be tapped for her farming experience.

Pin-Lee had experience in habitat design and construction, so she would be responsible for refurbishing the hoppers and the survival huts, turning them into safe, practical spaces where the humans could comfortably live. That meant maintaining the lighting, air filters and temperature controls, as well as building furnishings and extra supports out of local materials.

Overse would be the human medic. Her experience in emergency medicine was limited, but she was the only one here with medical training at all. So she would need to spend a lot of time familiarizing herself with the MedSystem educational modules and equipment they’d taken from the DeltFall habitat.

Pin-Lee and Gurathin would be my own personal medics. I wasn't thrilled about Gurathin being assigned this duty, but Pin-Lee would be busy with habitat maintenance, so she needed backup.

Gurathin's main responsibility was to maintain the hoppers' systems and the communications array. Specifically, he needed to expand the range of our feed as soon as possible.

Arada would set up and monitor the shielding and sensor array.

Volescu and Bharadwaj had arguably the most important job, which is why two people were needed to do it. Their function would be to maintain and operate the recycler in Hopper 3.

The recycler was capable of breaking down a wide range of materials to their base components. It could then reassemble the materials into a limited number of pre-programmed forms, or spit out a chunk of raw material. It could generate synthetic cloth if and when the humans needed more clothes. It could work with dura-plastics and minerals, creating simple implements and some replacement components for the hoppers. Very importantly, it could create pharmaceutical compounds, if given the right materials to work with. (Pin-Lee's medication could be replenished. I'd been worried about that.)

Also, it was connected to the hygiene stations and could process human waste. If it ever broke down, guess who would be the one digging a toilet: me.

The recycler would help us a lot, if Volescu and Bharadwaj could keep it running, but it wasn't meant for constant, long-term use. It was company equipment; that meant it was about as stable and well-built as I was. (Not likely to malfunction and murder a bunch of people, but you could never be too sure.)

Mensah asked, “What about you, SecUnit?”

“What about me?” I played back my recent recording, but no, I hadn't missed anything. She'd just decided that now was the time to include me in the conversation.

“What other duties do you think you would be suited to?”

I said, “Uh, other than security?” I assumed that would be the scope of my responsibilities.

“Yes. Do you have any other training? Interests?”

I was interested in watching media, but that wasn't an activity that would be useful to the group's survival.

“SecUnits aren't given any other kind of training. Even the basic education modules I have are ... limited.”

I shouldn’t have said that. I didn't like the traces of pity on their faces. I gave the question more thought.

“I can help Arada establish the shielding and surveillance perimeter.”

“Good. And I think you can also help Gurathin maintain the hopper’s systems and communications array,” Mensah suggested.

Yes, I could do that, but it would mean working with Gurathin, otherwise I would've suggested that myself. It was bad enough that he was charged with repairing me.

But I couldn't think of any good reason to say no. I guess I'd have to get used to his presence sooner or later. I didn't think I'd ever enjoy it though.

I said, “Okay.”

There was one important role that we didn't have anyone qualified to fill: maintenance and repair of the hopper engines. Mensah volunteered to take on the task, since she had experience in her youth maintaining agricultural vehicles. She'd have to study the hopper's specs and manual very thoroughly. (I wish she'd mentioned this role earlier, I'd much rather help her than help Gurathin.)

Cleaning duties were divided up and given to everyone, even me. I didn’t think that was fair. I wasn't the one going around shedding hair and skin cells all over the place. But technically I would be inhabiting this space just the same as they were, and Mensah thought that meant I should also take part in keeping it in an orderly condition.

Mensah decided we would meet again to adjust the division of labour once we were settled. There were some duties that would require a lot of work upfront, but less work later, and some that would get heavier as time went on. (I think we'd all end up being drafted into working for Ratthi in food production at some point.)

Our new roles started as soon as we landed in the new camp.

That was one more adjustment we’d all have to make.

**

Early the next day cycle, Mensah called a meeting in Hopper One to address a problem Arada had identified.

One thing I know about most humans. They talk. A lot.

And apparently speech recognition technology was so robust that human speech patterns could be detected from almost any kind of background noise.

Our shielding array was robust. It could potentially hide us from detection even if GreyCris restored the satellites. But the one weakness in our array was sound shielding.

“No, I don’t think the recycler can produce even half of these parts,” Volescu told Arada, who had hoped we could build more shielding components. “We can ask Bharadwaj when she wakes up.” Bharadwaj was still recovering from her injuries but I didn’t think she knew any more than Volescu did right now.

“I think we should move on to the next option,” Mensah decided, “for now.”

If we were afraid GreyCris could detect human speech, there was an easy solution to that. The humans could just stop speaking.

“Gurathin, SecUnit, you can start setting up the stable feed array today,” she ordered. “We’ll communicate through the feed until we find a better option.” 

That would be easy for me, anyways. I liked communicating through the feed, in fact I preferred it.

I watched most of the humans’ faces fall.

Was it really that hard to shut up for a little while?

Volescu said, “I was hoping to make voice recordings for my kids.”

I told him, “The company will start looking for us before your kids forget the sound of your voice.” That was probably a lie. But I was allowed to lie now.

“I can teach you to cut together video,” I offered, and that seemed to cheer Volescu up.

I was sure that once they got used to communicating over the feed, it wouldn’t seem so bad. In the meantime I didn’t want to deal with their mopey faces. There were more important things to be upset about than not being able to talk out loud.

**

I followed Gurathin to Hopper Two, where we started setting up the new feed.

We opened up one of the panels that housed the communication system. While Gurathin installed the new pieces of hardware we’d taken from the DeltFall habitat, I realigned the system to accommodate the changes. It didn’t take long. Neither of us had direct experience doing this, but we both had the skill sets needed to figure it out.

Once we were finished, I set up a diagnostic routine and let it run.

Gurathin backed out of the uncomfortable-looking crouch he’d been in to access the panel. He sat down on the floor with this back to the wall, the same as I was doing. We waited for the diagnostic to finish.

“Do me a favour,” Gurathin said, breaking the utilitarian silence I was just starting to enjoy. “Don't ever lie to me to make me feel better.”

I snorted. Right. I’d seen his face take on a particularly sour look when I’d told Volescu that the company would come soon. This is what I get for trying to be nice.

I told him, “I don't owe you any favours. You humans will have a much better chance of surviving if you actually think you’ll survive.”

He said, “Hm. And what do you actually think?”

I thought about lying again. But I’d lied to Volescu because I liked him, and I wanted to make this easier for him. Gurathin seemed determined to make this as hard as possible. If he wanted the truth, he could have it.

“The company’s too lazy to notice we’re missing. And our chance of getting through the next hundred cycles alive stands at about fifty percent. It goes down to one percent by one hundred and sixty cycles, and the only reason it doesn't go down to zero percent is because I'm an optimist.” 

Gurathin took this in. If he was fazed, he didn’t show it. “Based on what?”

“Based on the fact that GreyCris has at least one more SecUnit, a huge store of supplies and almost two years to find us. Based on the hazards of this planet, the ones we do and don't know about. Based on the fact that none of you are prepared to handle the stresses you're about to face. We'll be constantly hiding, running, foraging and even fighting. All you have are three hoppers, Mensah, and me.”

“Of course, you're trying to position yourself as crucial to our survival.”

“Because I am crucial to your survival. Do you enjoy antagonizing me?”

“No, I just don't…”

I waited for Gurathin to finish his thought, but he didn't need to.

I said, “After all of this, you still don't trust me.” I don't know why I was surprised, or disappointed.

“We don't have a choice but to trust you now, and that is not comforting to me.”

Even from my peripheral vision, I could tell he was still tired.

I said, “That's funny. You observed once that I have no reason to trust you either. There's nothing I can do to stop any of you from telling the company about my hacked governor module.”

His face got all pinched and he shot me a look that said _liar_. I think he and Mensah were the only ones who'd immediately realized that all I had to do to keep my secret safe was to kill them all.

I shook my head. “If it's a choice between murdering everyone and getting caught, that's not a choice to me. I guess I'll get caught. It would've happened sooner or later.”

Whenever I thought about it too hard, I got the same _I don't care_ feeling that came over me when Dr. Mensah first asked me to remain a part of their group, after they'd found out about my broken governor module.

I knew these humans, and I liked them (except Gurathin), but it was still too much to hope that they would just ... let me live, knowing what I was. Even if they did, where would I go? What would I do? There was a reason I still went out on contracts with the company. There wasn't anything else I wanted to do, anything else I really could do. There were no good options for me. I'd been playing this game for awhile, but I knew that I would lose someday. There was no winning here.

Now I was thinking about it too hard, so I tried to think about something else. I thought about all the ways I was going to boost their chances of survival. I think I could stretch it to fifty in four hundred cycles. I thought about the next episode of Sanctuary Moon I had in my queue. It had the part where the colony solicitor met her new bodyguard and eventual best friend. I liked that part.

Gurathin was still watching at me. I think I must've let my expression slip at some point. I don't know what he saw, but he looked away.

He said, “Can you really blame me for not trusting you? With everything that was happening to us?”

“No. It was a smart move.” If I was a human I wouldn't trust a murderbot either. “We clearly shouldn’t trust each other. But we have to, for now. You won't survive waiting for rescue and the transport won't come just for me. So we can work towards that. Once we're off planet, we can go back to our natural state of fear and paranoia.”

Gurathin snorted. “Sounds about right. I guess it’s a truce of sorts.”

The diagnostic finished. I opened a private feed with him.

I said, _Okay. A truce._

This was a human thing I'd seen in serials. I was worried he was going to try and shake my hand or something, but he didn't. That alone made me think that we might get along after all.

I took a drone from my utility belt and put it down on the ground between us.

_Help me hack these drones. It'll easily double our chances of survival._

Gurathin picked one up and looked at it.

 _I'll see what I can do,_ he said. He was no Mensah, but he was no slouch either. It would be nice, maybe, if we could be allies here.

**

It took another day to assemble and calibrate the shielding. When it was finally ready, I went out with Arada to plant the devices around the perimeter of the camp. We walked down to the beach to find boulders stable enough to withstand being pierced with a metal anchor. Shaded by broad-leafed trees, we tramped through the knee-high green flora surrounding the base of the tall cliff side. 

Usually, when the humans left the habitat, they’d gone out in pairs, not just for safety, but for company. They were all friends, and they liked to chat with each other to pass the time. So far Arada had been one of the ones who had been good about not pressing me to talk anymore than I wanted to. But about three hours into our task, while we were testing one of the units we’d just planted, I guess she was bored or curious enough to initiate conversation.

_Can I ask you a question, SecUnit?_

Honestly, I was bored too. And I didn't think Arada would ask anything too intrusive. So I said, _okay_.

_How long ago did you hack your governor module?_

That was interesting. She would've known that if she'd read my personal log. I'd assumed that either Gurathin or Volescu would have shared it with all of them.

I said, _Over 35000 hours ago._

We walked another thirty metres before she asked,

_Can I ask you another question?_

I almost sighed. I appreciated her tact, but this could get old. Sometimes questions weren't so bad. As long as they didn't start unloading all their personal problems onto me, I think I'd be okay.

 _Ask me whatever you want. If I don't feel like talking I'll tell you so._ I usually wasn't allowed to say things like that to humans. It felt kind of good.

_Did you plan to leave the company at some point? To escape?_

Oh. I almost felt like that was a bit intrusive and I didn't want to answer.

 _No, I had no specific plans to escape,_ I told her. _And now I don’t feel like talking,_ I added to forestall the further questions I could tell she wanted to ask.

Her brow furrowed. She didn’t press me, but I knew my answer had bothered her.

I think they were all still trying to wrap their heads around me. They thought of me as a person now, yes, but they couldn’t help but equate 'person' with 'human'. Whenever I did anything that reminded them I wasn’t human, it made them uncomfortable. A human would’ve wanted to escape the company.

I couldn’t tell whether I wanted that or not. No question, the company was a shitty company, I knew that. And I knew when I got an order I didn’t want to follow. I knew now that I liked doing a lot of things that the company wouldn’t have allowed me to do if I hadn’t hacked my governor module. But beyond that, I had no idea. I didn’t think there was a way I could explain that in a way that would make sense from a human perspective, and I didn’t want to try.

So Arada and I walked in uncomfortable silence. When we finished laying out the anti-surveillance devices, we rounded back towards the camp. I noticed that Arada stopped to bend over a few times. She scratched a spot on her right calf.

I asked, _Is something wrong?_

 _There's a tear in my suit. I felt a tickle. I think a bug or something got in._ _I'm sure I squished it now._

The suits weren't robust because they didn't have to be. The humans didn't really need them on this planet. The air was fine to breathe for a few planetary years or so. The bond required them for a number of reasons: a) head protection, b) built-in interface, and c) helmet cameras, so the company could monitor every motion and sound they made.

Other than the helmets, the suits were made very cheaply, and they were easily torn. Most of the humans hadn't bothered to repair any tears that had occurred. It had never been a problem until now.

**

That evening, Mensah and I sat in the cockpit. We talked about one of the ideas Volescu had floated earlier.

He'd wondered if there way any way we could build our own emergency beacon. It was an exciting prospect, and it sounded like a simple solution. But the goal seemed sadly out of reach for a number of reasons: a) we'd have to come up with a design that the recycler could produce, and the tech involved was beyond their fields of study, b) even if we had a design, Volescu guessed it would take the recycler thousands of hours to produce all the components, presuming it didn't break down from such heavy usage, c) even if we felt confident the recycler could produce it, we didn't have the rare metals that Gurathin knew we'd need to build a communication device capable of sending a pulse through the wormhole to the company network.

 _I have most of those rare metals,_ I admitted to Mensah. _They were used to build components of my inorganic neural network._ Most murderbots didn't know much about their circuitry, but most murderbots hadn't spent so much time in their cubicles studying their own specs.

 _We're not going to feed you into the recycler,_ she said without even thinking about it.

 _I appreciate that, Dr. Mensah._ I really did. I wouldn't have told her if I suspected she'd think otherwise. _But if for some reason I get killed, you have my permission to try._

That cheery topic led to a conversation about role redundancies. Once everyone settled into their new duties, we could start cross-training. That way, if any one of them died, someone else could take up their role.

 _If I can’t fill my capacity as leader,_ Mensah said, _I think Arada should lead._

I said, _I agree._

Of all of the others, Arada was the most level-headed. She was smart and confident, but not overly egotistical. She knew how to listen to teammates who were also smart. She reminded me of the few good supervisors I’d worked with on contract.

If Mensah died, though, I was pretty sure we'd all be fucked. Mensah didn’t remind me of anyone because I’d never met a human like Mensah before. But we’d keep trying, and Arada was our best bet.

Mensah said, _I think_ you _should consider taking the lead if Arada can’t._

I played my recording back twice.

I said, _What?_

Mensah smiled. _I think you should consider leadership training. I could help you. You have the decision-making skills. You can read your teammates’ emotions and I’ve seen you manage them. I think you have a solid basis to learn how to lead._

I took 4.9 seconds to think about that. So long that the hopeful look on her face started to fade. I could’ve just said _no,_ but I felt like I owed her an explanation.

I told Mensah, _Arada asked me today whether I wanted to escape the company. I didn’t answer fully because I didn’t think she’d like the answer._ _Dr. Mensah, I didn’t plan to leave the company. I barely know what I want from one order to the next. I appreciate that you appreciate my expertise, and I will give my advice to anyone who takes up the leadership of this group. But if I don’t know how to make decisions for myself yet, I don’t want to be in a position to make decisions for all of us. I don’t want that responsibility._

Her expression softened. She said, _I understand. Thank you for your honesty, SecUnit._

She didn’t make me feel weird for turning down a role that most humans in the Corporation Rim would’ve scrambled to achieve. I nominated Pin-Lee for third choice, and she agreed. But these were plans that wouldn’t need to be implemented for quite some time, hopefully.

Soon we had more pressing things to worry about.

**

Within ten cycles of landing, Arada was bedridden.

Overse had staked out an infirmary in Hopper One. If we needed to move quickly, nobody who was seriously ill would have to be moved from a hut to a hopper. 

The smell of sweat and vomit filled the entire hopper. Arada's symptoms were bad enough that everyone was concerned, especially since she didn't seem to be responding to any of the treatments in the toxin kit. Some of the treatments even seemed to be making her worse.

Mensah and Pin-Lee stepped in to help, since this was all understandably upsetting for Overse.

 _I don't even know if it's a toxin, a pathogen, or a parasite, I just don't have the diagnostic tools we need,_ said Overse in the common feed. She wasn't crying, but she might as well have been. There were some emotions you just couldn't keep from bleeding through into the feed.

It was really upsetting for me. I couldn't murder a toxin, and any pathogen or parasite that was infecting Arada would be inside Arada, and I didn't know how to kill them without killing her as well.

We were all trying to come up with ideas about what it could be, and how to treat it.

I said, _Arada said she felt an insect in her suit about ten cycles ago._ I felt stupid for not connecting the dots earlier.

They found Arada's suit and the uniform she'd been wearing the day we walked around the island. There were insect remains smeared on her clothes where the tear in the suit was, but they were completely unrecognizable.

Did I mention there were insects here? Lots of them. Sometimes they settled on the face plate of my helmet and often I couldn't get them off without crushing them and I hated that.

Overse said she couldn't detect any marks on Arada's skin where the insects got into her suit, but we still assumed they were a likely suspect for Arada's illness.

 _Everyone check your suits,_ Mensah instructed. _And we'll have to make sure to wear them all the time when we're outside._

Since the weather was so nice, they'd been getting lax, and they always took their helmets off when they ate. Now they'd have to move mealtimes into one of the survival huts.

They all checked their suits thoroughly, repairing any holes or tears with a compound Volescu produced from the recycler.

Eight cycles later, Bharadwaj, Ratthi and Volescu started to get sick too.

The next few cycles were upsetting for everyone.

We couldn’t rule out a contagious pathogen, so Mensah, Gurathin, and Pin-Lee were absolutely forbidden to go near the infirmary. Which meant that I was drafted into helping Overse care for the sick humans.

I wish I could say the fluids and the smells were the worst part. They were bad enough. But floors could be washed, and towels and sheets and clothes could be thrown into the sanitizer. The humans were so weak. So diminished. I knew humans were fragile, I’d seen them break, but I’d never seen them deteriorate from the inside like this.

Nothing could replace these humans if they died. And I _liked_ these ones. I thought of all the shitty humans I’d known who were still out there, shitting up whatever station or planet or mining rig they were on. It wasn’t fair.

Bharadwaj was still recovering from the injuries Hostile One had inflicted. Her systems were the weakest. She fell into a feverish sleep. She was breathing but she wouldn't wake up.

Ratthi became delirious. He kept asking me what I wanted to eat. He was very worried about the fact that he hadn’t fed me. I don’t eat. I can swallow food and pretend to eat, but it'll just sit in my lungs until I cough it out, and it’s really gross. Finally I just told him I needed a high-protein diet, and that I preferred salty and bitter flavours.

Ratthi said, _Ah yes. I have just the thing._ He smiled as he went to sleep, I guess dreaming of the perfect meal plan for me. 

Volescu was cogent long enough to make a request. I helped him make a voice recording for his kids. The hopper would muffle the sound of his voice, and he could barely speak above a whisper anyways.

He spoke to each of them individually. He told them that he loved them. He didn’t say the word goodbye, but he spoke as though this were the last time he’d be able talk to them. It felt so personal, I felt like I was intruding just by witnessing it. I was struck by how happy he seemed. You would think a goodbye would be sad. It’s not that he was happy by the thought that he might die. He was just happy thinking about them, knowing that they were out there, and that they might hear his words.

Then he fell into a deep, unrousable asleep as well.

All I could do was help Overse keep them clean and hydrated and turned from side to side. The monitors tracked whether they needed oxygen, but I still felt compelled to watch them for the signs of impending vomit that could occur at any time and choke them to death.

I’d stacked my armour in a bin near the hatch. My skinsuit was much easier to wash. Ratthi and Volescu could see my face, and it seemed like that helped.

At first Overse kept her suit and helmet on. Then Arada stopped breathing. Overse directed me to help her administer the pulmonary aids. We cleared a fluid buildup in Arada’s lungs and she started breathing again. Overse shed her suit and helmet so she could hold Arada’s hand and lay her head against Arada’s chest, listening to her heartbeat. I knew I should’ve stopped her. I think I only barely understood why I couldn’t.

Overse kept her composure until she went to the storage room where we kept the clean linens and medical supplies.

I followed her.

I’d seen humans crumble under stress. Some of the contracts I’d served had been worse for the humans than they’d been for me, which was saying a lot. I’d seen them curl into themselves and never fully recover. It always seemed to help immensely if they had even one person they could lean onto, to keep them from falling.

It was strange how I didn’t have to say anything. Maybe Overse saw something in my face. She held onto me and cried against my shoulder, and for once I wasn’t disturbed by human fluids or the sheer emotion. I could help. It wasn't hard. And it was like she was expressing something I felt too. We leaned onto each other.

The next cycle, Arada’s fever broke. By the end of daylight, she was awake and cogent enough to talk. Still weak, but recovering. I was pitifully grateful. I’d had a nightmare vision of watching them all die like this, one by one. It was so real and close it made me scared to think of it, even though I knew it was irrational.

The day after that, both Pin-Lee and Overse started getting sick.

Mensah and Gurathin had to help me take care of everyone, because I couldn’t do it alone.

By this time, Arada could eat and walk, though her energy levels were generally low.

We still didn't know exactly what was causing this illness. There was no entry in the hazard report about venomous insects in this area. The fact that Overse was sick suggested a pathogen she'd picked up from Arada. But Ratthi and Bharadwaj hadn't been anywhere near Arada when she was sick.

 _But_ they'd both been out in the forest. Ratthi gathering berries for analysis, Bharadwaj looking for minerals to feed into the recycler.

And as soon as Arada could get out of bed, she put on her suit, found a pair of scissors and marched into the greenery, ordering me to follow.

 _Your field camera has high resolution, right?_ Arada asked. _Watch this._

She held out her arm and clipped a hole through her suit and the uniform underneath, exposing a patch of skin.

_Now you think you can get my wife sick? Come and get me, motherfuckers._

I saw no fewer than five species of insect come along to try the Arada buffet. Humans must be delicious.

If it was either an insect borne pathogen or toxin, at least we'd narrowed it down to a handful of likely possibilities. I looked each one up in the hazard report. I found an entry buried in the ‘known specimens’ section.

 _None of these are supposed to be venomous._ _But one will apparently try to lay eggs in anything bigger than itself. And the larvae produce toxin._

I sent a picture in the feed, captioned _Hostile Two._ I had to magnify the image, since it wasn't visible to the human eye.

We checked the spot where I had a visual recording of the insect landing on Arada. Ugh. Microscopic larvae living on her skin. I don't know who was more disgusted, me or the humans.

(Why wasn’t this entry flagged as venomous in the hazard report? Who the hell wrote this thing? Oh, right. The company did. I guess technically 'toxic' wasn't the same as 'venomous', and some lazy fuck didn't feel like making a separate category for 'insect species that lays toxic eggs')

At least now we knew what we were dealing with. Overse stayed cogent enough to cooperate with Mensah in outlining a treatment. One of the more obscure anti-toxins in the kit would mitigate their symptoms, so they were all dosed right away.

What the toxin kit didn't have was the right kind of topical treatment to kill the eggs and larva, but good old fashioned heat would do it. Gurathin calibrated one of the medical hand sensors to detect them, and Mensah found a surgical laser in the general medkit with a setting to low enough to fry them without lacerating skin.

While they went around checking everyone for eggs, I applied a filter to my own video input to spot the adults. And I went on a bug hunt.

There was one just flying around the common area. I shot it with one of my energy weapons.

Finally a problem I could solve by murdering the shit out of something.

When I moved into the survival huts, I couldn't use my energy weapons at full power. I set them to the lowest setting, then adjusted them to an even lower setting, outside the range of their intended use. They would produce a little burst of heat just hot enough to kill Hostile Two but not to set fire to the walls.

I rifled around the entire camp, and I didn't find as many bugs as I thought I would. When I did find them, they were in disturbing places.

I found a few peeking out of the helmet of Ratthi's suit that was waiting in a pile to be sanitized. I assumed he must've missed a rip somewhere, or gotten a new one that he didn't notice. After I killed the bugs, I did a thorough inspection of the suit. No rips or tears. I held it up and magnified the view. I saw tiny holes in the fabric. Just the size of Hostile Two, almost as though they'd burrowed through. Well, they knew the fabric was flimsy. I could talk to Volescu and Bharadwaj about programming the recycler to produce something sturdier.

When I searched through Hopper Two, I found some in the storage area where Ratthi kept the meal pacs. An extra pac had been taken out of the cryostorage case and left on a counter near the heater. It was probably supposed to be Pin-Lee's breakfast, but Pin-Lee had woken up too sick to eat.

There were some insects flying around the meal pac. I had a bad feeling about this. I took a closer look.

Yep. Hostile Two had burrowed through the meal pac casing. That material was freeze proof, heat proof, radiation proof and impact proof. It could probably withstand the vacuum of space. And these things had tunnelled through it like Hostile One through rock. I'm sure somewhere there existed a suit fabric that could keep humans safe from these things, but there was no way we could make it.

I took the pac outside and blasted it to bits. It wasn't Murderbot proof.

Okay. So it looked like the humans would be spending all their time in the hoppers or the huts. That didn't bode well. They were all friends but they would have much less space here than they'd had in the habitat. Things might start to get tense.

The last one I found in the camp was outside one of the survival huts, crawling along the fine mesh of the new habitat-rated filters Pin-Lee had just installed. I didn’t want to damage the filter, Pin-Lee had spent a lot of time installing and testing it. So I waited for the insect to fly away so I could shoot it.

Hostile One burrowed through the filter. Not good.

I knew there were several layers of physical barriers to pass through to get into the living space inside the hut, not to mention the mechanism that circulated the air in and out. Surely the hostile couldn’t…

I checked inside the hut.

Oh it did. It crawled out of the vent. It had gotten through.

After I killed it, I spent half an hour taking the filter apart to find all the spots it had burrowed through. I sent pictures to Mensah's feed.

 _Dr. Mensah, there's evidence to indicate Hostile Two can burrow through suits and meal pac casing. And get through the H-rated air filters._ At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they could get through a hopper’s metal hull. 

Mensah didn't respond right away, but I could almost feel her sigh through the feed. She said, _We need to start thinking about leaving for a new camp._

She decided for sure the following day, when Arada fell violently ill again. There had been a hope that the humans could develop a tolerance for the toxin with repeated exposure, but apparently it was the opposite. Overse said something about an immune response that I didn’t understand. (I didn’t like organic parts in general. I didn’t understand much about my own organic parts, and humans were entirely made of organic parts.)

I started packing up the survival huts.

The anti-toxin had severe side effects of its own, and everyone who had gotten sick was still recovering from those. Mensah and Gurathin were the only humans strong enough to help me take down everything we'd built and carry them back into the hoppers. But both of them had been exposed to the insects, and it was only a matter of time before they got sick and had to be dosed as well. We had to hurry.

Two cycles later, once we were almost ready to go, I sprinted around the island gathering the shielding anchors. They were the last things we needed to collect.

The sun had just set. As soon as it was fully dark, we would lift off.

Gurathin stood blocking my way to Hopper One. He was sweaty, his temperature visibly elevated and his expression grim. He held up one of the medical sensors, pointing it at me as though it were a weapon. He said, _Now you._ He had seemed sick but not deliriously so. Maybe I was wrong.

_What it is, Gurathin?_

_You have organic parts. We didn't just inspect everyone and everything in these hoppers only to have you bring in larvae under your skinsuit. You need to be checked._

I really wanted to pick him up by his armpits and drop him in the infirmary for Overse to deal with, but I didn't because a) I suspected he was vindictive enough to vomit on me in retaliation, and b) I knew he was right. It wasn't likely that these things had gotten to me without my noticing, but I knew it always paid to be paranoid. I was pissed off because I should've thought of this myself.

I took off my armour and pulled down my skinsuit so he could pass the light over the organic parts. It didn’t matter that they’d all seen me with my skinsuit down. It didn’t matter that this was for my own health as well as theirs. I hated being this exposed, in front of Gurathin no less.

But yes, in the places where my armour met, those things had managed to burrow through and lay eggs on my organic skin. I’d felt so many shades of disgust over the past ten cycles that the only thing I had left was a feeling of strong annoyance. That’s one more reason for me to dislike my organic parts.

Gurathin had the restraint not to say ‘I told you so’. He flicked on the medical laser and held it out to me, handle first, so I could burn them off myself. There were only a few, almost all in places I could reach. Gurathin ran the light over my back and cleared a couple more. The pin-sized laser wasn’t painless, and it left a red mark that would burn for hours.

 _I wonder why the toxin hasn’t affected me the way it’s affected all of you,_ I said while I pulled my skinsuit back up. It was likely I’d been exposed at the same time as Arada. I might’ve even helped spread them around. I wasn’t used to being paranoid about anything smaller than an un-augmented eye could see.

 _If I had more energy, I’d be very interested in that question,_ said Gurathin. _There’s probably a treatment somewhere in the answer._

I pulled on my armour.

Gurathin tucked the laser into one of his pockets. He took one last, withering look at the camp and turned to climb the ramp back up into the hopper. Halfway up, he stumbled sideways, and I caught him before he could fall right off. He leaned on me while I guided him into one of the cots beside Mensah. She had just fallen into a thirty-hour sleep, one of the anti-toxin’s many disruptive side effects.

Overse and Pin-Lee were just well enough to pilot Hoppers One and Two, but I was glad they had the autopilot to help them. I would pilot Hopper Three. 

Sensors packed. Hatches closed. Status request ping. Arada answered for Mensah and Gurathin.

The sky was a cloudless pitch black, a good time to get the fuck out of here.


	3. The Second Camp

We shifted continents. Scouting for a serviceable spot in the region we’d chosen, we manoeuvred the hoppers into a high-ceilinged cavern in the side of a mountain, hidden by a high rocky outcropping and a waterfall curtain. We parked and we waited.

Forty hours took us through what Ratthi estimated to be the entire life cycle of Hostile Two. If we’d brought any eggs with us, trapped somewhere in a nook we hadn’t detected, they’d have lived and died by now. It would be a disaster to bring them with us to a new continent, not only to us but to anything else living here. We checked our skin again, then again, and again. All clear.

We opened the hatches. I went outside first. I’d scoured the hazard report for signs of anything remotely dangerous in the area. An ecosystem of vertebrates lived here, but none of them seemed capable of inflicting much damage even if they attacked. And all of them were big enough for me to shoot if they got close enough to try. It wasn’t completely safe, but there wasn’t any place on the planet that would be completely safe. The risks of staying here seemed acceptable.

The climate was cooler in this region, but still temperate. Past the curtain of water coming down the mountain, I could see a landscape of hills rolling downwards, covered by trees and veined with a network of creeks and rivers. The sun hanging over the horizon cast a nice glow over everything. There was a breeze, and here on the mountainside, very few insects.

_All clear, Dr. Mensah._

She came out to join me, then signalled to the others that they could follow.

_We don’t have enough daylight to construct the huts. We’ll set up the shielding and find a more permanent spot tomorrow._

I went back into Hopper One, where Overse was still sitting with Gurathin. He’d only woken up a few hours ago, and he kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Nobody else had been so severely affected by the anti-toxin.

 _Go and see,_ I told her. _It might not be perfect but it’s nice._

We were all too cautious to call anything perfect now.

**

I scouted while the humans slept. By morning, I had the shielding array anchored and ready to go.

We took the hoppers out to a clearing further down the mountain, where the ground was relatively flat, with a steep hill rolling up one side and down the other. The ground was a rocky base covered in a thin layer of soil. Small plants and spongy moss covered the ground like a blanket. Trees grew right on top of the rock by sending their roots down through cracks to anchor themselves. Nearby, a wide, shallow stream flowed over a bed of rounded stones.

We set up camp more cautiously this time. Recycler priority was given first to Pin-Lee, to upgrade the filters and structural integrity of the survival huts, and then to Overse, to replenish and expand the pharmaceutical supply.

Arada took up amateur entomology, trapping insects to study and identify in the hazard report. They all seemed harmless. Most of them actively avoided landing on human skin if at all possible.

I patrolled when I wasn’t needed, not just to look out for threats, but to get away from humans when it all started to feel claustrophobic, which was often.

It took a full twenty cycles for them to start taking off their helmets outside the filtered areas.

Gurathin went first. We were outside Hopper Two, adjusting the communications array from behind a panel on the hull.

Even though I’d initially hated being assigned duties with Gurathin, I had to admit that his presence was more tolerable for long stretches of time than the company of the others. The others were just all so _nice_. They liked chatting amiably with each other, and even though they usually refrained from pulling me into conversations (except for sometimes when they did), I felt … an expectation to contribute to the discussion. Except I didn’t know how, and I didn’t particularly want to. They didn’t mean to make me uncomfortable, but just by being nice, sometimes they did.

I felt no expectation to be nice to Gurathin. And Gurathin didn’t expect anything from me. I might as well be a bot when I was with him, and sometimes that was a relief.

Gurathin was trying to fix a segment that sat at an awkward angle from the panel’s entrance, and his helmet kept getting in the way. He was getting increasingly frustrated. He finally stood up and took it off. Instead of getting back to the task at hand, he closed his eyes and took a deep, long breath. When he opened his eyes, he bent down to pick up a handful of moss and held it up to his face to smell.

He asked, _Do you smell that?_

I lowered my helmet. All I ever smelled these days was the smell of humans. The air here was really nice. Fresh and cool and, yeah, full of delicate green scents. He held the moss up to me for me to smell.

I said, _Nice._ It wasn’t just the moss. It was probably the trees and the soil and the water too.

After that, Gurathin never wore his helmet if he could help it. He had the advantage of his augment to connect to the feed. I left my helmet down too. If there was anything harmful in the air, we’d be the first to find out.

One by one, the other humans followed suit. I felt like I should’ve been more concerned they were going around without full helmets and suits. It would have been safer. But it made them very obviously happier not to wear that gear all the time, and that was important too.

**

We settled in.

I developed an emergency protocol that I instructed the humans to follow in case GreyCris attacked us. With Mensah's permission, I ran periodic surprise drills in both the day and night cycles. They didn't like it, but it was important, and it made me feel better.

Just as I was starting to feel safe from the environment around us, new challenges inside the camp presented themselves.

Volescu and Bharadwaj both started waking up late at night. They rarely slept a healthy night’s sleep, and they often had nightmares. Most days they were jumpy and anxious, and I didn’t think it was just from lack of sleep. 

Bharadwaj had it worse. One morning we felt a slight tremor in the ground — a mild earthquake, from a distant fault line. My drones saw her crumple to the ground near a copse of trees. I called Overse, and we found her going through what I recognized to be a panic attack.

I didn’t know much about this specialized field of medicine, but I’d seen this before. I consulted with Overse and told her about Bharadwaj's sleeping problems and the other symptoms I’d noticed. This wasn’t a private issue. We all more or less knew about each others’ health concerns, because any health problem that concerned one of us concerned all of us.

Surviving the attack of Hostile One had been a traumatic experience, and it had affected both Volescu and Bharadwaj physiologically. Their bodies still were producing stress-related chemicals even now that they were out of danger — an after-effect of shock.

At night, most nights, I sat with them while they slept. I kept my helmet down and if they woke up, my presence was calming to them. The med-kit included a recycler pattern for treatment pharmaceuticals. Once they’d gathered the raw materials, Volescu and Bharadwaj engineered their own prescriptions. Concurrently, they had long talking sessions with Overse and Mensah, who had both studied the trauma treatment section of the medical guide. Neither of them were experts in this particular field of medicine, but I observed marked improvement in both Volescu and Bharadwaj’s symptoms once they began treatment.

I read the trauma guide too, to help if I could. I suspected that by the end of this ordeal they would all need trauma treatment of some kind.

**

We continued to settle into a routine. Once we established our habitat, and the humans' food sources and our basic needs were met, the rest of our duties took up less than half the hours of the day cycle. All we had to do was wait.

I hated that.

I took in every bit of entertainment media I had. I picked out my favourite ones and I played them again. I was used to being bored. I didn't like it, but I could deal with it. But as the cycles passed with very little to do, I started feeling a hum of anxiety that slowly got worse and worse.

I frequently walked out to check the shielding anchors. I made excuses to scout beyond the perimeter. I started swimming in the pools at the feet of the waterfalls in the area, ostensibly with the goal of finding edible plants. Once I was away from the camp, I started to dread coming back. Sometimes it was physically difficult to force myself to return.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

The feelings that I felt, this sense of irrational fear, echoed the feelings Volescu and Bharadwaj had only recently described to me. Great. When I speculated that others in the camp would need trauma treatment at some point, I never thought it would be me.

Except … nothing that had happened on this planet felt upsetting enough for me to describe as traumatic. I think. I didn't know what counted as trauma for a SecUnit. I’d been damaged worse than Bharadwaj countless times in my life. So, what the hell was going on?

I knew I had to go back to the camp to attend my duties. And I had to report to Mensah. Otherwise I kept my distance.

One morning, Gurathin pinged me, and I just didn’t answer. I’d spent half the night sitting with Bharadwaj and Volescu, and I’d done my cleaning rotation while they were all sleeping. If Gurathin needed me to adjust the communications systems, I could do it remotely. All he needed to do was send a description or an image of the problem.

Gurathin kept pinging me. In the evening, after their last meal, he came out looking for me. He found me standing on the rocky shore, looking out at the nearest waterfall. He pinged me several times while he approached.

I didn't turn around. I didn't want to talk to him. There wasn't anything he could say that couldn't be said remotely over the feed.

“SecUnit? Are you malfunctioning? SecUnit?” He spoke aloud, though his voice was already weak from disuse and muffled by the waterfall.

Gurathin tapped my shoulder.

I rounded on him. Pushed his chest with one hand, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“Do NOT touch me without my permission!”

Gurathin stayed on the ground. Startled, but not seriously hurt.

I stood over him, my breathing elevated. I don't know why I'd done that. I didn't like Gurathin but he was no physical threat to me.

Maybe I _was_ malfunctioning. The thought scared me. I backed away. I tried to respond to him over our feed. That’s when I found out that it was blocked. He must’ve made adjustments to his augment. That’s why he couldn’t send me anything but a ping. If I’d tried to respond I would’ve figured it out. I adjusted the feed signal channel to fix it.

 _Sorry,_ was the first thing I said. _You startled me, but I overreacted. I didn’t intend to hurt you._

Gurathin got up. His palms were scraped and bleeding. He frowned at them, brushing away a few pebbles that had lodged themselves in his skin.

We both stood there for a few long moments while I tried to calm down. I wondered if I’d broken our truce.

Gurathin said, _SecUnit, you’re acting … erratically._ _Have you run any diagnostics lately? Maybe Pin-Lee should assess your systems._

I’d been running diagnostics almost constantly for the past few cycles. I had no explanation for why I felt this way. I told him, _I’ve run several diagnostics._ _I don’t know why I’ve been experiencing these … exaggerated emotional episodes. I’m going to consult Dr. Mensah first._

Gurathin nodded approvingly. He asked, _Is there anything I can do?_ He wasn’t acting like our truce was over. It made me feel better.

 _Nothing other than what you’re doing,_ I said. _Thank you._

_**_

Once Gurathin left, I pinged Mensah, requesting a meeting in the cockpit of Hopper One. I went there immediately, and I waited for her. What the hell was going on? These humans relied on me. How the hell could I protect them if I couldn't keep myself from hurting them?

When Mensah arrived, she sat down casually, even though I was clearly upset. She was good at keeping people calm, I'd seen her do it dozens of times before. I didn't think it would work on me, but then it kind of did. 

She asked, _Are you okay?_

I said, _Not really._ I took a deep breath. I was embarrassed about what happened, but I wanted to describe the problem as succinctly as I could. The sooner she knew what was going on, the sooner she could help.

 _I physically lashed out at Gurathin, and I don't know why. If it were anybody else, I would chalk it up to hunger or lack of sleep, and tell them to get some food from Ratthi and take a nap. But it was me. If there's something wrong with me, if I can't control myself, that's ... a security concern._

She looked out past the hopper’s viewport, as though she were trying to see what I was seeing. She said, _I doubt your reaction came from nowhere._ _Can you describe how you felt when it happened?_

I said, _I don't know how talking about my feelings will help._

 _On Preservation, we learn to talk about feelings when we're children. It does help. If you can describe them, and you can understand them, you can, to a certain degree, anticipate them. Sometimes you can manage them, or at least manage your reaction to them,_ she told me.

I think my scepticism must've shown on my face, and she caught it, even from her peripheral vision. 

She said, _Like you said, it's a security issue now._

I hated it when people used my own words against me. 

_Consider it an order._

I wanted to sigh. I hated this. Even though this is why I’d called her. This is what I knew I needed. I replied, _Okay._

I replayed the stored footage in my mind and all I could feel was my reaction to it now: kind of horrified, kind of embarrassed, kind of frightened that I'd lost control. I tried harder. I replayed the moments just before Gurathin tapped my shoulder. I tried to put myself back there. 

My heartbeat was elevated, and so was my breathing rate. I stood immobile, stalk still. My vision changed as my pupils dilated involuntarily.

 _I was scared,_ I said once I realized it.

She seemed less surprised than I was. _Fear is a common cause of violent reactions. So, you didn't attack him for no reason. Do you know why you were scared?_

 _No. There was no reason for me to feel that way._

She furrowed her brow. _You've been spending more time on the periphery lately,_ she said. _To me, it seems like you've been a little scared for a while. The last few cycles, I think? I couldn't quite believe that was what I was seeing. Maybe I'm wrong._

I thought about it. _No, you're not wrong._

I brought one of the drones into the hopper so I could see her face in case I needed to look away. I would never be comfortable talking about my feelings, but this conversation felt especially tense somehow.

_Do you know why? Is it Gurathin? Or something else, from outside? Sometimes, we feel things for reasons that we don't consciously know about, but that end up being important anyways. Subconscious intuition._

I could tell Mensah wanted to know whether I thought we were all in danger somehow. Whether I felt GreyCris was close, in a way I couldn't define. But GreyCris didn't scare me. When I thought about GreyCris, the feeling I had could mostly be described as _I will kill the shit out of them, and I will win._ When I had a target to fight, I felt strong. This feeling was the opposite of that.

_It's not GreyCris. It's not anything from outside._

I tried to think about the feeling I'd had when Gurathin approached. I tried to think about the feeling I'd had for the past few cycles. The high-level hum of anxiety that made me want to leave, just to be out of sight.

 _It helps sometimes to notice and look out for physical signs of fear. Those can be very telling,_ Mensah suggested. _How do you react physically when you're scared?_

 _Sort of the same as humans. Circulation and pulmonary rates elevated. Adrenal chemicals activated in preparation for combat._ I gave it some thought. _Humans call it a fight/flight/freeze response. SecUnits only have a fight response._

 _That would explain what you did,_ she observed.

 _Yeah. I guess so._ It didn't make me feel any better. When would we get to the part where I felt better about all of this? When I could 'manage' my feelings?

_In the past few cycles, can you tell when you've had this response? More acutely than usual? And do those moments have anything in common?_

When she put it like that, it seemed easy. I searched my memory for noticeable spikes in heartbeat and breathing rate. Then I examined my recordings matching those timestamps.

I recorded elevated readings over twenty times in the past three cycles. They all seemed unconnected. I wasn't sure I could detect a pattern. Every instance was so mundane. I was observing scenes all similar to this:

Arada, pacing slowly back and forth across the edge of the tree line.

Ratthi waiting for the meal pacs to heat up, starting the same season of Drama Sun Islands in his feed for the sixth time in a row.

Pin-Lee going to take a nap in her cot during the daytime.

Bharadwaj throwing rocks into the stream.

Volescu watching the clouds moving in the sky.

Overse cleaning and arranging the medical supplies, which were all cleaned and arranged to begin with.

Gurathin playing another game of Tavla with himself.

Mensah poring over the maps of the planet. Making another cup of tea with the same satchet she'd used the last time. Then studying the maps again.

 _It was Gurathin, but not just Gurathin. It was all of you._ I struggled to describe what I was seeing. I knew there was something in common.

 _You're all bored,_ I concluded. Even acknowledging that made my levels spike. _You're bored and ... that scares me?_ That was so stupid I thought I really must be malfunctioning. Is this the kind of shit humans had to deal with all the time? No wonder most of them were kind of dumb.

We both sat with the statement for awhile.

Mensah asked, _Can you remember the first time you felt that way?_ _Before we brought you here, the very first time?_ Her expression didn't seem warm and calm anymore. She seemed worried.

I sifted through my memory for the same physical markers of fear.

 _I had a contract. It was a long time ago. Before I'd hacked my governor module,_ I said. I ran the memories back, trying to decide how I could talk about them in a way that would make them make sense.

Mensah didn't interrupt me. She kept her eyes trained away.

_It was a boring contract. Another survey. The company really oversold its security detail. There was nothing dangerous on that planet, but they'd contracted two of us. Two SecUnits._ _The humans were bored. That's the first time I remember being scared by it._ _Then, you know, they started having 'fight nights' every so often. They'd order me and the other SecUnit to fight each other, and they'd watch and make bets on the outcome. Sometimes they gave us weapons, that's when it got messy. The supervisor turned a blind eye. It didn't count as property damage as long as there was enough of us left to dump into our cubicles at the end of the night._

I saw Mensah's face change. There was a lot there, mostly in the range of anger and sadness. _That's terrible, SecUnit. I'm so sorry that happened to you._ She was horrified on my behalf, which felt weird because I didn't feel the same way. _You know that we would never do anything like that to you._

 _I know._ That's why I liked these humans. I was in no danger of being hurt here. Which is why this response was so irrational.

_Sometimes, when something traumatic happens, it creates a fear response that can be triggered by anything that reminds you of the trauma, even if there's no danger that it will happen again._

Wait, I think I was missing something. Or she was.

I asked, _Do you think that was traumatic?_

_It sounds like it would be. How did it make you feel?_

Ugh. That question again. But we might as well get into it. I went back through the memories of the fighting. What was I looking for? What was trauma supposed to feel like?

_I was kind of pissed off. It was stupid and wasteful. I thought those humans were idiots and I was irritated that I had to follow their stupid orders. I was worried that I might kill the other SecUnit, or it would kill me. But I didn't mind the fighting._

She seemed surprised.

_I really didn't. It was kind of informative. I learned a lot about how to take down another SecUnit, and how to defend myself from one. I liked it when I won._

She was looking at my face now. I'm not sure if she believed me.

I shrugged. _It doesn't feel traumatic._ I went through the memories again. _The fear response started when I could tell the humans were bored. When they made us fight I felt ... relieved._ That was a feeling I couldn't explain. _I think I was expecting something worse._

Mensah looked worried again now. She asked, _What's worse?_

 _I don't know._ I thought about it. _I really don't._

_That contract was the first time you remember feeling that response?_

I sifted through my memories. _Yeah. It started almost right away, once we'd set up the habitats and it was clear that there wasn't much for the humans to do after their shifts._ I thought of something else then. _The company used to wipe some contracts from my memory, like they did after my governor module malfunctioned. There are tens of thousands of hours that I can't account for. If you're right, if this weird response started because of some kind of trauma. It might have happened during one of the contracts that was wiped from my memory._

She looked away. From the set of her jaw, I could tell she was angry again. Stupid company and their stupid policies. She said, _Sounds like it's possible._

_One the one hand, whatever it was, I'm kind of glad I don't remember it. On the other hand, how do you 'process' trauma you can't remember?_

Mensah shook her head. _I don't know_ , she said sadly.

The organic parts of my brain kept memories of its own that could never be fully wiped, but those memories weren't much more than flashes of images, vague and jumbled together. If I didn't think about them much, eventually they faded from my mind. I could try to sort through those. Part of me didn't want to.

_There are techniques that humans use to calm down in times of stress. I can teach you those._

_Not sure if they'll work for me, but I'll try. I don't like this bored humans equals bad feeling. It's stupid._ Huh. Now that I had a name for that feeling, and I knew how irrational it was, it didn't seem quite as strong.

 _And I think we humans should figure out better ways to keep ourselves occupied, so we're not so bored all the time. It’s not good for any of us,_ said Mensah. _I've got some ideas about that._

**

That's more or less how social hours started.

Mid-cycle work was halted so they could spend an hour or so playing organized games. They had a general meeting to decide what they should play. Gurathin pushed for tavla, but Mensah insisted they pick something that would keep them physically active.

They decided on one of the older games from Preservation. It involved teams, a ball, and a floating circular ring that made randomized movements around the playing space. It was one of the only games they could think of that would fit inside the confines of the shielding, and the only one they could easily build the equipment for. Not everyone was enthusiastic about the choice, but Mensah had the brilliant idea of adding stakes. Everyone liked the small, sweet tubers that Ratthi had started gathering from the water’s edge. Mensah decided that winners would get the sweet roots.

Those humans played like it was life or death.

I always watched, either in person or through my drones. The expressions they made were hilarious. I kept video recordings in permanent storage, with captions like ‘Volescu misses the end throw.’ It looked like someone told him all of his offspring had died in a terrible accident. And ‘Pin-Lee and Ratthi win two sweet roots’. They were so ecstatic I thought they would start making out right there in front of everyone.

I couldn’t participate. My physical abilities were far beyond theirs. And what did I care for sweet roots? But out of sheer curiosity, they all insisted I try one game as a team-less agent. I demolished all of them. I tried not to. I slowed my movement speed by a third. I couldn’t help myself — I won in less than a quarter of an hour. Then I put together a series of clips of their sad faces. ‘Humans lose. SecUnit wins.’ I even claimed my sweet root. (They were starting to be traded like a form of currency, and you never knew when currency could be useful.)

I’d warned them. I like winning. 

**

Evening social hours took place in a lounge Pin-Lee created out of one of the compartments of Hopper Two. She set up a long padded bench on the wall and pillows on the floor for extra seating. Gurathin collaborated with her to install a viewing screen on the wall, big enough for everyone to see. Every evening, after eating, they all gathered to watch media.

I wasn’t going to attend, but since I was the one who provided most of the media, I got to pick what they watched. So we watched The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. The show was so popular and long running that there were enough episodes to last over a planetary year. Nobody objected. I’d seen most of it but I could watch it over and over again. I hadn’t expected how satisfying it would be to watch media with others. Seeing their collective reactions reinforced my feelings about it, or added a perspective I hadn’t considered.

I always stood in the back to watch. One evening, Pin-Lee said, _There’s room for you, SecUnit._ She gestured to a spot they’d saved for me, right in the middle of the bench.

That was sweet, but I didn’t want to sit there. I didn’t know what to say.

Gurathin said, _SecUnit doesn’t like being touched._

Oh. Yeah, I guess that was true. I’d never been able to express it. I was never given the choice. He was the only one who knew.

Humans thought touch was comforting. They all did it from time to time. Arada had put her hand on my shoulder. Mensah held my hand when I was damaged. I’d held myself in check. I was never allowed to object to anything any human did to me. Except that one time, when Gurathin had touched my shoulder, and I’d thrown him to the ground for it. That’s one more secret of mine he knew.

Mensah asked, _Is that true, SecUnit?_

I admitted, _I don't mind being touched if it's necessary, but otherwise, yes._

Pin-Lee said, _Oh._

I could see the discomfort on all of their faces, remembering all the times they’d casually reached out to pat my back or squeeze my forearm.

They all moved away over from the spot in the middle, the spot they’d designated as ‘mine’. Like it wasn’t a big deal or anything. I sat down in the spot they’d saved for me. We kept watching together.

**

We kept having to smooth over problems as they arose.

One morning, Arada snapped at Bharadwaj during their meeting about replacement parts for the shielding. Nothing concrete came of that meeting. I could tell that Bharadwaj thought Arada wasn't so evenly keeled.

Overse fell asleep on one the infirmary beds in the middle of the day. It would have been funny except for the part where Pin-Lee twisted her ankle on a rock and I had to poke Overse awake with one of my drones because shouts on the feed weren’t getting through.

That evening, Mensah and I had a meeting in the cockpit, and we talked frankly about concerns we felt we couldn't bring up during group meetings

I said, _Arada and Overse need a separate, private space to ... maintain their relationship._

_I agree. They've both been sensitive lately. Do they need to work out a confrontation?_

_No. It's kind of the opposite. They're grumpy and tired because they stayed up late to have sex, when they thought no one would hear._ I'd tried my best to stay distant and discrete. I really would rather not have to watch or listen to humans having sex ever again, thank you very much.

 _Oh._ _That makes more sense. They have a low-conflict relationship, I'd be worried if that changed._ Mensah didn't seem surprised, but this wasn't something either of us had planned for. I'm not sure why.

I didn't need habitat schematics to tell me what I'd observed about human life functions. Humans needed food, water, air, and sleep. They thrived in temperate climates. And they loved sex. Sexual activity, either partnered or solo, was something you could never ignore about them.

_Humans like to have sex. There should have been a provision about it in the survival manual, that was an oversight on my part._

Mensah smiled. _No one here will die from lack of sex. But we should have a space set aside for privacy. That's important. Everyone needs a certain amount of privacy. Even you might benefit from it._

Now that I wasn't just a piece of ordinance to them, now that I couldn't just stand still and pretend to be an object ... they didn't ignore me anymore, which meant I couldn't ignore them. It was really stressful to be aware of them, being aware of me, all the time. So, now that she mentioned it, yeah. It would be great to be alone for a little while. Alone but close enough to feel like I could still protect them. Just to have some breathing room.

And even though I’d been watching them constantly since we’d arrived here, there were some things I didn’t need to see.

_Okay. How can we make that work?_

**

Pin-Lee built three large storage containers out of several small storage containers, like the carrying cases for DeltFall's weapons and drones. Volescu and Bharadwaj constructed nets out of a synthetic fibre they coaxed out of the recycler.We cleared out the biggest compartment of Hopper Three, stacking all of its supplies into the outside containers, attached by nets to the back of each hopper. If we had to leave immediately, as many supplies as possible needed to be ready to go with us. (There was a heated argument about what should be classed as an essential supply that would be kept in the hoppers, and what could be considered a non-necessary supply, stored in the outside containers, which may or may not be damaged or lost in an emergency evacuation. Was the water heater for the shower an absolutely life preserving, essential piece of equipment? Six out of eight humans said so, and I didn't get a vote.) Mensah helped Pin-Lee refurbish the hopper with a small desk space, a chair, a display surface and a two-person bed that took up half of the floor space.

Hopper Three became the privacy hopper.

We set up a feed to book the space. It filled up almost immediately. Bharadwaj moved like lightning on Pin-Lee. They were the first booked into the space, followed by Overse and Arada. I would've felt bad for Ratthi. He’d been gearing up to approach Pin-Lee for a long time. But Volescu, in a surprising move, made an invitation that Ratthi accepted. Apparently Volescu and his marital partners had some kind of arrangement where this was acceptable, Mensah explained to me.

Most humans in the Corporation Rim were as possessive of their partners as they were of their clothes or their personal hygiene tools. Even if they had multiple partners, there were usually lots of rules and restrictions to follow. No one would ever be okay knowing anyone else could just use their personal tooth cleaner without even asking.

Apparently on Preservation, as unhygienic as it was, the tooth cleaners were free to clean whatever teeth they wanted.

That's nice. I looked forward to this survey becoming some kind of weird partner-swapping free-for-all.

Before Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj could set one hot foot in the privacy hopper, I instituted a strict hygiene regiment that I expected to be observed after every single booking. If these humans expected me to clean up after their sexual adventures, I would walk away into the forest and I would not return.

The recycler started humming away on bed sheet material.

Gurathin booked a few hours every other cycle. So did Mensah. So did I. Usually I used the time to initiate a recharge cycle without worrying that anyone would interrupt me. Sometimes it really did help, to just sit and be alone. One time I took a shower, just to see what it was like — okay, I could see the appeal. This was the most comfortable space the humans had, and it felt nice to know that it was partly mine too.

**

Another social activity seemed to develop naturally. The humans started telling stories to each other. Not just little anecdotes to illustrate a point of conversation. Full stories of things they’d experienced or heard of, with beginnings, middles, and endings. Just for the purpose of … whatever purpose stories served. Sometimes they were funny. Sometimes they were sad. Sometimes upsetting, sometimes just odd. I used to think stories were just for entertainment. At least the popular media stories I liked were always entertaining. But I could see now how they could be a way of bonding. A way of communicating thoughts and emotions about the world, more informative than any comprehensive dataset could be.

It started as an evening exercise, after social hours watching media. Those few hours when nobody was ready for sleep, but they didn’t want to start another episode of media. It expanded to mealtime hours. That’s when I started attending mealtimes even though I never ate.

Pin-Lee told stories about her parents. Bharadwaj about her siblings. Volescu and Bharadwaj told stories about their marital partners and about their kids. Ratthi had stories about the multitude of friends and casual partners he’d had. Arada and Overse told stories about each other. Even Gurathin told stories about his colleagues and the people he’d worked with.

One night there was a lull. A pause in the conversation that stretched on a little too long. And I said, _I have a story._

I had the advantage of the viewscreen. I stitched together clips of a situation I’d witnessed on one of my more unpleasant contracts. It was about how three employees conspired to bamboozle their supervisor into breaking their contract early, with severance pay. The title I displayed at the end was: Esa, Sekai, and Elane QUIT. Everyone laughed. I liked that. (They were allowed to laugh out loud. Just like the grunts and exclamations they made during the social hour games, laughter didn’t register on language monitors. They were too easily confused with fauna sounds.)

I had a lot of stories about the clients I’d worked with. A lot of them could be categorized as tragi-comedies. Some were love stories. Some were downright horrifying. (I knew all the red flags for psychopathy. I stopped reporting them once I realized they were just being recruited to specialized fields in upper management.)

I often didn’t have video for the stories I told. That is, I had a lot of video, but some stories couldn’t be adequately told using the camera angles and unfortunate lighting from my recordings. I started telling stories the way the humans did, with words and maybe one or two clear pictures. Even without video or sound, I could make them all laugh.

Ratthi said, _SecUnit, I can’t believe we let you stand in the ordinance room like a piece of furniture for twenty-one cycles. You’re so witty!_ _And we never knew._

 _I knew,_ said Volescu. _Gurathin and I knew when we read your personal log. Yes, I’ve deleted it now. But ... it was so entertaining. You have a strong voice, SecUnit. You should consider recording your thoughts. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would listen to what you have to say._

I ducked my head and said, _Okay. Thank you._

I didn’t mind telling stories about other people, but the thought of telling my own story was still pretty uncomfortable. No. Not yet.

**

The humans didn’t always fill their hours with things to do, but they were a lot more active than they used to be, and they were happier for it.

At the same time, I wasn't getting as anxious during the times they were still bored. Mensah’s advice about breathing technique didn’t work for me the way it did for humans, but it was helpful to have something to focus on other than whatever uncomfortable emotions I was feeling.

I think it helped me to know them more, and to know that they knew me. It wasn’t always easy or comfortable, but it was better.

**

We were just starting to feel secure here. Then one evening, Gurathin sent a ping from the communications array in Hopper Two. _Mensah, SecUnit, you’d better listen to this._

Bharadwaj, Volescu, and Overse were already in the sleeping bunks. Pin-Lee was helping Ratthi put the dishes and utensils in their storage space. I was with Arada, looking over one of the new anchors we’d installed in the shielding array. _I have to talk to Gurathin,_ I told her before jogging back towards the hoppers.

I met Mensah, heading over from her office space, and we converged in Hopper Two.

 _I almost didn’t catch this,_ Gurathin said, throwing a visualization of the signal to the hopper’s view screen. _It pinged one of the long-range sensors about fifteen minutes ago, and I thought it was static. But I applied one of the encrypted channel keys SecUnit provided._ He played the recording that the sensors had captured.

“...commander of the company search team contract code PA-935-397. Report for client retrieval. PreservationAux survey team, this the commander of the company search team contract code PA-935-397. Report for client retrieval...”

Wow. We’d been here a long time, but this still seemed sudden. I was starting to doubt the company would ever start searching for us.

Gurathin said, _If we don’t reply soon, it will be out of range._

They both looked to me.

I said, _I don’t know how a non-company ship would have the codes to access this channel. It’s highly guarded information. And they have the right contract code. I’m 90% sure it’s a company ship._

I watched Mensah’s face as she made the decision. She said, _Send a reply._

While Gurathin pinged the ship, Arada came through the hatch. _What’s happening?_

I said, _We’ve made contact with a ship._ _I want everyone inside the hoppers. Treat it like a drill._ Just because we were about to be rescued, there was no reason to be stupid. Getting into the hoppers was an easy precaution to take, on the 10% chance GreyCris had stolen or bribed or hacked its way into the company channel. 

Arada’s eyes widened and she turned to go. She made the announcement on the common feed. I heard their shouts of joy, and nobody bothered to shush anyone. They were allowed to make noise now.

 _They’re on their way,_ said Gurathin once he’d finished giving them our coordinates. _ETA 8 minutes._

That gave us eight minutes to run through the drill procedures. I’d let myself be happy about being saved once I was finished being paranoid (so honestly, maybe never).

I ordered, _Arada, pull in the shielding array._

_Already on it._

We’d recently spent a number of precious drones constructing shield anchors that could detach from their moorings and retract into the hoppers. If we had to set up camp somewhere else, we would need them. And the last thing we wanted was for GreyCris to get a good look at the workings of the shielding device we were using to hide ourselves.

My drones outside saw a shimmer in the night sky as the light shield deactivated. We didn’t need it anymore. The approaching ship knew our exact location anyway. It still gave me a chill.

Mensah hurried into Hopper One, a tense expression on her face. Pin-Lee started the engines of Hopper Three, and Overse came in to take the pilot’s seat beside me. Nobody dawdled or stopped to grab anything. I was actually proud.

I sent a status request ping and they counted off. All ramps up, all hatches closed, all lights dark. Thrusters primed and ready for takeoff.

I kept a handful of drones out. I sent one as far as it would transmit.

There it was. Coming in fast. It didn’t have any lights on either, but I could tell its shape by the shadow it made against the stars.

Fuck.

 _It’s GreyCris. The company wouldn’t use a hopper for a search like this. And they’d have all their lights blaring,_ I said into the general feed.

 _Emergency escape,_ Mensah ordered promptly. _We’ll meet at the rendezvous point._

I knew they were all horrified, but not as horrified as me. I should’ve known. I think on some level I _did_ know, but I’d let hope and good odds override my instincts.

I’d underestimated GreyCris. I wouldn’t do that again.

We lifted off with two minutes to spare. It wasn’t enough. The GreyCris hopper fired on us. Hoppers weren’t even supposed to be armed.

_Hopper One hit, we have to land!_

_Keep going, we’ll meet you there._ I told Overse.

I ran to the back of the hopper to arm myself. I’d been saving a few big guns just for this. Then I popped the emergency exit on the side of our hopper and I jumped off.

Hopper One landed messily in a copse of trees. The communications array in Hopper Two was flying out of range, but I still had the drones. Nobody was hurt but they were all panicking.

I landed in a roll. Okay. I could handle this.

I sent a flurry of pings to the GreyCris hopper, trying to mimic a downed hopper. It worked. The hopper slowed and turned towards me.

They started firing on my position. This ruse wouldn’t work for very long, I probably had a few seconds at most. Instead of running away to dodge their shots, I took cover behind the trees and ran towards them. I took a shot in my arm and one in my abdomen, so I turned my pain sensor down.

My arm worked well enough to pull my weapon from where it was clamped to my back. As soon as the hopper got into range, I stopped, took careful aim, and shot it with the projectile weapon I’d spent hours modifying. A blow to the hopper’s front sent it crashing to the ground. 

I sent drones out towards the GreyCris hopper crash. If there were survivors, I needed to know. 

Meanwhile I sprinted towards Hopper One. The hopper had landed badly. It was tilted towards one side, and I could see a gaping hole where GreyCris had landed a shot.

Mensah and Ratthi were crouched awkwardly on top of it, where one side of the bottom of the hopper was sticking up in the air. Ratthi was holding a light so Mensah could work on one of the thrusters that had been damaged.

I asked Mensah, _How bad?_

_We have the part to fix it, I just need some time._

Okay. I wasn’t sure how much time we had, but at least it wasn’t hopeless. If we couldn’t get the hopper to work, it would be almost impossible to make it to the meeting point and the next camp.

_Can I help?_

I wished I’d taken up learning engine repair with Mensah. I hated feeling useless.

Before she could answer, an energy burst shot Ratthi in the back. He dropped his light and fell forward.

_Get down!_

I returned fire, but not before a second shot hit Mensah in the leg while she was trying to jump down from the hopper.

I caught Ratthi before he slid to the ground, and I carried him to the far side of the hopper. Mensah was there. I didn’t have a MedSys and all I could tell was that neither one was dead yet.

I brought all my drones back and I sent them in a search pattern. It was too dark to see anything.

Shots peppered the already damaged thrusters. I ran towards their source in a random zig-zag pattern, trying to dodge as many as I could. Energy weapons wouldn’t kill me, but they could damage me badly if they were strong enough, and I couldn’t afford that now. The humans still needed me.

My drones found two humans in armour sneaking through the trees, trying to get around the hopper where they could get a clear shot at Mensah and Ratthi. I couldn’t deal with them until I dealt with the one right in front of me.

GreyCris’s last SecUnit.

Fuck.

 _Dr. Mensah, more shooters coming around. Try to get into the hopper._ I said this as I launched myself towards the other SecUnit.

It was crouching on the ground, arms forward, energy weapons drawn. It ducked to one side, but I grabbed one of its arms. I had enough momentum to pull the arm up and back.

Once I was behind the other SecUnit, I aimed my projectile weapon into the back of its neck and fired. No cubicle could fix that damage.

Most SecUnits only ever had to deal with human hostiles, so there probably weren’t many who actually knew how to fight another SecUnit. I guess that’s something I could be grateful for.

I rolled to a stop and changed directions. The human shooters were running now. They almost had a bead on Mensah and Ratthi.

Ratthi was dead weight, lying on the ground, fighting just to breathe. Mensah couldn’t move him with her leg so damaged, and she wouldn’t leave him. She pulled a projectile weapon from its holster on her side. She aimed it out towards the tree cover, probably looking and listening for anything that would give away the human hostiles intent on killing them.

I got to the hostiles first. It didn’t take very long. Their armour was so shitty, all I had to do was shoot them in the head.

 _Hold your fire, Dr. Mensah. It’s just me._ I put my arms up while I stepped out of the bushes and walked towards the hopper. Some humans would shoot anything that moved if they were scared. That’s why I was generally against humans carrying arms at all.

I should’ve known that Mensah wasn’t like most humans.

 _Hurry,_ she said. _Bring him inside. We need the medkit._

This is why we all needed cross training. By the time this was over, I wanted to know how to fix broken bones as well as broken hopper parts.

I carried them both into the hopper. We only had the emergency guides to follow, but they were clear and easy to understand. (Did the company design these? For once someone was doing their job properly.) We stopped Ratthi’s bleeding and sedated him. As near as we could tell, his lung had been punctured, but he could survive it if the other one didn’t collapse.

Then I helped Mensah treat her own leg wound. She’d lost a lot of blood, but she ordered me to boost her back up onto the hopper so she could finish the repairs. I clamped a light up so she could see.

While she worked I combed the surrounding area for more hostiles. When I made it back to the downed GreyCris hopper, I surveyed the scene. Two dead humans in the hopper, and two more on the ground who didn’t survive jumping out as it crashed.

I took whatever weapons and drones I could get. I downloaded everything I could from their hopper’s feed, camera and comm system. Then I proceeded to destroy anything that might give GreyCris information about us or about what had happened here. Every camera, every feed, every system. When their hopper was a burned out husk, I went back to Mensah. She had just finished the repairs.

I held Ratthi steady while the hopper lurched up and corrected itself. It was a rough launch, and it would be a rough landing. I knew we could do it. We’d made it this far.

**

We met the others at the rendezvous point. So far it didn’t look like there were anymore hoppers following us, but we couldn’t stay long.

 _I’m proposing a new strategy,_ Mensah announced on the feed. She was pale and weak, but still clear-headed. _SecUnit made a suggestion that I’ve been considering. I think it makes sense._ _GreyCris will likely concentrate their search to areas like the one we just left — places with temperate weather, fresh water, and lots of flora and fauna. Those cover approximately 20% of the planet._ _Instead, we could choose a location that is less hospitable, but still survivable. That would give us another 50% of the planet to consider. We’d have less of a chance of being found if we choose a remote location. Someplace that they'll search last, if at all._

I watched their faces in the hopper cameras as they considered this.

_I know it’s a big departure from what we’d planned, so I want to put it to a vote. I wish we had more time to discuss it, but we have to move quickly._

It didn’t take much to convince them. If Mensah thought it was a worthwhile strategy, that was good enough for them. We voted unanimously yes. Then they picked a spot from one of the regions I’d identified. We left to find our new home.


	4. The Third Camp

We chose a location on the same large continent as one of the frigid planetary poles. It was a rocky, mountainous region with little in the way of flora or fauna.

The temperature was generally cold. Not cold enough to freeze bare skin during daylight hours, but cold enough to be uncomfortable without adequate clothes. Bharadwaj and Volescu found a recycler pattern for high-efficiency thermal clothes, which we all needed.

The humans would have to grow their own food now, but Ratthi had been preparing for that. He had seeds and roots and clippings from anything nutritious he’d found in the last two camps, and he had enough food stored to last until the first harvest.

Massive weather events would be the real challenge in this location. They were vicious. Few life forms could to survive here. I hated it. I couldn't fight the weather. I'd voted against migrating here, but the humans almost unanimously outvoted me. They might seem like a frail species to me, but I guess they'd been largely successful in the universe due to their ability to wander out into lethal-to-life places and somehow survive. Bad weather didn't scare them as much as GreyCris did, so here we were.

At least there were no bugs.

**

We settled on a plateau in the middle of a gigantic canyon system, with cliffs rising above us and more cliffs leading down into a waterway that slowed to a trickle or swelled to a torrent depending on the precipitation.

For the first thirty cycles, we were so busy that we didn’t have time for social hours. The first thing we did after setting up the shielding was to weatherproof everything. In this area we could expect severe cold, wind, snow, rain, or hail with very sudden shifts. Arada and I had to design and build extra sensors to detect incoming weather patterns. Concurrently, we had to help Ratthi establish a food growing system. While he was recovering from his injury, he was still weak and easily ran out of breath. At his direction, we did a major re-arrangement of the hopper’s interiors. The infirmary became the grow room, the storage space in Hopper Two became the infirmary, and all the stuff we had in Hopper Two was shoved into any spare bit of space we could find.

We’d lost the survival huts in our hasty retreat, but they probably wouldn’t have withstood the weather here anyway. Pin-Lee made designs for a series of sheltered spaces at the base of the rock cliff beside us, but it would take a long time to gather the raw materials to build it. In the meantime our common space was a bunch of rocks we could sit on, loosely grouped together in the open air. During weather events we were stuck in the hoppers.

It felt more claustrophobic, and everyone started getting on each other's nerves. No question, life was harder here.

**

One night I picked my way down the cliff side towards the stream below. The cloudless sky showed off the planet’s ring and a bunch of stars. I could hear the sound of water running over the rocks. It was nice.

Stepping from stone to stone, I walked out to the middle of the stream and crouched on a low, flat rock. I watched the water flowing past. There wasn't much light, but I didn't need much light. I didn't even have to wait very long.

There. I reached into the water and snatched an aquatic vertebrate with both hands. It fought me while I carried it to the bank of the stream, twisting back and forth, tail slapping, mouth gaping open and shut. It really didn't like this. Neither did I. I held it down to the ground, took a guess at where its brain might be, opened the energy weapon in one of my forearms, and shot it. 

So that was a first. I've murdered a lot of humans, augmented humans, the occasional construct and even a few bots, but I've never murdered a fish before.

I carried it up to the camp and put it on a table we’d set up in the middle of the common area, where all the humans could see it. I knew at least half of them would be confused about why I would bring them a dead vertebrate. Humans didn't eat fauna, generally, since vat proteins were more nutritious and cost-effective (and less icky). So just to make things really clear, I said in the common feed:

_Dinner's served._

It went over about as well as I thought it would. They couldn't help making groans and huffing sounds in protest. Usually I found their little animal noises to be kind of funny, but I didn't appreciate it now. I wasn't surprised by Arada's disgust, or by Volescu's sad resignation. Pin-Lee's automatic reaction was always in the range of anger, and Gurathin was ... Gurathin. He'd have that sour look on his face if I brought them a warm vegetable feast. But Ratthi was so horrified. At me, personally. That hurt. He of all people should know that the plant starches we'd been able to grow weren't even coming close to providing them with the nutrients they needed to stay alive.

 _We don't even know if this is safe for us to eat,_ Pin-Lee argued. She had a point.

_You're scientists. Do some tests. If this isn't good, there are other animal protein sources on the continent._

There was only one opinion that really mattered here. If Dr. Mensah agreed with me, she could sway the rest. I hadn't asked for her permission, because I knew how upsetting it would be for her to ask me to do this.

 _Our ancestors lived off of animal proteins,_ Mensah said in the common feed. _Not even that long ago. We can do it if we have to. SecUnit shouldn't have had to be the one to force the issue. It already does a lot to keep us alive. At the very least, we should be able to feed ourselves._

Everyone took a moment to think it through. It didn't take long for them to agree. Bharadwaj and Overse had agreed from the start. They were probably having private feed conversations with their partners to argue my point.

Gurathin opened our private feed. He said, _You asshole._ _We should have discussed this as a group._

 _You know exactly how that would have gone._ We would have discussed it until they all, as a group, were suffering from malnutrition-related organ damage. Nobody could make me stand by and watch that. _This way, yeah, I can be the asshole so none of you have to be. You're welcome._

He crossed his arms, fuming, but he didn't argue any further.

They did some tests. They ate the fish. Sorry, fish.

They didn’t like to think about it now that they normally had the technology to bypass a lot of their ancestral ways. For humans, it was kind of a necessity, to survive by eating living things. They'd evolved to live by consuming both plant and animal matter. Even though they could grow protein in a vat, they usually needed all the complex nutrients that only living cells could provide. (My energy cells were powered by solar array nets, which technically meant I was more flora than fauna. Murder-y flora. Murderplant? I'd try to make a joke out of that later, if I could ever make it make sense.)

The humans ate. They didn't get sick, and they didn't argue or try to make me feel bad about it. I could tell that the smell of the cooked flesh made them pretty hungry. Old instincts die hard.

**

I helped Pin-Lee modify one of the laser weapons in my inventory, and she used it to carve out two spaces in the side of the rock wall of the cliff. We all gathered stones to make the rest of the walls. It felt very primitive, except for the thermal glass windows and the lightweight synthetic binding material she used to cement the stones together. I didn’t know anything about building design; I assumed she would need metal and duraplastic to feed into the recycler in order to make the components of a liveable space. Apparently, rocks and sand were fine, as long as they had the right mineral composition.

Now we had two extra spaces, one ostensibly for work and one ostensibly for socializing, but those were arbitrary distinctions because they were really just for getting the fuck out of each other’s faces. And not a second too soon, either.

They didn’t re-establish mid-cycle games. We didn’t have the ground space and we often didn’t have the time or the right weather. At least we still had evening media-watching hours, and that was nice.

Otherwise, we all started cultivating our own hobbies. Rock climbing. Rock carving. Exploring caves we found in the rock cliffs. You get the idea. There wasn’t much around of great interest. (Except weather patterns, which Overse started tracking obsessively.) Gurathin got really into the study of lichen, which was a kind of life form that grew on ... rocks.

I started rigorous cross-training, both for myself and others. We all needed educational sessions in basic emergency medicine, hopper piloting and repair, shield maintenance, and yes, basic weapons training. That took up a huge chunk of my time, and it was technically work.

My leisure hobby, apparently, was arguing with Gurathin. The more we all talked, the more apparent it was that I had a lot of gaps in my general knowledge. There were a lot of words that I only half-understood, and whenever I used one inappropriately, Gurathin was the only one who didn’t hesitate to be openly, brusquely critical of me. And apparently I didn’t like to be criticized. So, we’d argue, and every chance I could, I’d criticize him right back.

I wondered if, somehow, he thought our truce was broken, but I came to realize that wasn’t it. I think Gurathin was just miserable here. And so was I. Everyone else adapted to this place with a kind of emotional buoyancy that I couldn’t understand or achieve. I noticed that when Gurathin was grumpy about something unrelated, he was much more inclined to peck at me for petty grievances. And I’d do the same. It didn’t feel right to unleash my complaints on anyone else. But I could grouse at Gurathin all day long, and he’d grouse right back. In this camp, our feed became the most active one I had.

**

Ratthi proposed a hydroponics growing system for some of the plants. Sounded simple enough to me, but then they all got into a discussion about what kind of water would be best to use to replenish our supply.

Ratthi said, _What about the spring we saw on the map? It has a different source than the river._

 _I’ve been there,_ I said. _It doesn’t smell great. I could bring a sample back but I don’t think it’s potent._

Ratthi’s brow furrowed. There was a lull in the conversation.

Oh great, I said something wrong, didn’t I?

Volescu said, _Gurathin, don't —_

 _I think the word you meant was potable, SecUnit._ Gurathin said. _Potable means safe to drink, potent means strong or powerful._

There were sighs and rolled eyes around the room. Arada put her hand to her forehead as though she were getting a headache.

I tried to stay calm. I really did. _IT. DOESN'T. MATTER._

The humans all winced. I was more expressive in the feed than they were, I could make my voice pretty loud.

Well, they all winced except Gurathin. He crossed his arms. Oh he was digging in. _Yes, words matter. Language matters-_

 _You're the only one who cares, Gurathin. Let it go,_ I said, interrupting whatever speech he was going to make about human values or whatever. 

_I guarantee you, it's annoying to everyone. It's embarrassing. And it's so easily addressed. Your memory can absorb information faster than ours, you'd only need a few hours of language lessons. I could teach you if you want._

_Right. A boring subject taught by a boring teacher. I'd rather watch water evaporate._

That shut him up. He got that sour look on his face that he almost always has.

Everyone else was quiet too. 

Gurathin said, _Fine. If you're so committed to being an ignoramus, who am I to stop you?_ He stalked out towards the hoppers.

I didn't know the word he called me, but I assumed it was an insult.

 _Aw, SecUnit, that was mean,_ Ratthi said in our private feed. _Gurathin spent many years of his life pursuing a university career, but he never made it. He was told his lessons were never engaging enough._

_Then maybe it was mean but it's the truth. Gurathin gets away with spouting mean truths all the time._

Ratthi said, _You both do._ _You have more in common than you think. I think you'd be friends if you stopped pulling on each others’ pigtails._

I didn’t understand that reference and I wasn’t about to admit that, so it just made me grumpy.

Gurathin pinged the general feed. _I'll be outside the perimeter for a little while. I want to collect some of the lichen I saw growing downstream._

 _I advise against that. It’s not safe to leave the perimeter,_ I said, because I had to, because it wasn't. It was still my job to guard these humans, even if it was only a job I'd decided to do myself (maybe _because_ it was a job I'd decided to do myself).

Gurathin said, _Oh fuck you, SecUnit._ Then he signed off the main feed.

I looked over to Mensah. If she was going to give us a warm but stern talking-to about cordiality, she could start with Gurathin, because he'd started this.

_If I save everyone except Gurathin, that's still an 88% success rate. That's not bad, right?_

She signalled to meet me in her office space. Okay, I guess she was going to start with me.

**

A little over an hour later, the sensor at the far side of the valley pinged me and Arada with a warning. My levels jumped at the possibility that GreyCris might be scanning us, but it wasn't that.

 _Cold front!_ Arada shouted in the feed. _About fifteen minutes ETA._

 _Everyone into the hoppers,_ Mensah instructed calmly. We'd planned for this, we'd survived two already. _Call out when you get there._

I wasn’t calm.

 _Ratthi here,_ he announced, carrying a tented tray of seedlings into Hopper One. _Arada; Overse,_ they called out almost simultaneously, trailing Ratthi with buckets of wormy soil. _Pin-Lee; Baradwaj._ They rushed into Hopper Three. _Volescu._ He'd been napping in Hopper Two but he ran out to get his carving tools. _Mensah in Hopper Two._

Everyone accounted for. Except Gurathin.

Mensah asked, _Where's Gurathin?_ The winds were getting high. I could feel the temperature dropping.

I said, _He's still outside the perimeter._ I was making frantic calculations about how far he must be. My drones couldn't even find him. He'd told me to fuck off, so I did. I let him climb down the canyon. I'd thought, vindictively, it would serve him right if he got caught in a weather event. Even if I knew where he was, and I vaulted there as fast as I could, the cold fronts here were so fierce we'd both be dead before we made it halfway back.

I ran into Hopper One. I bumped the tray of seedlings out of Ratthi's hands, scrambling to grab emergency blankets, med supplies, heated pads, and a sleeping pouch.

I sprinted towards the edge of the cliff and jumped off.

**

I tried to make a controlled descent, adjusting for angles of impact, but the cliff side was all loose stones that slid and broke up wherever I landed. I ended up rolling to the bottom. My armour took most of the damage, which wasn't so bad. I was only worried about the supplies I was carrying.

A cloud of drones followed. The cold front would kill their energy cells, but as long as I could find them, I could recharge them later. I sent the drones scattering as far as they could transmit.

They found a basket of lichen-covered rocks on a rock shelf, just a couple meters above the waterline. There was a low-ceilinged cave in the cliff wall, just big enough for a human to squeeze into. It wouldn’t offer any protection from the cold, but humans instinctively looked for enclosed spaces when the weather was bad. If Gurathin was in there, he must be really panicking.

The waterbed started to freeze while I jumped over the rocks towards the cave. It had taken Gurathin an hour to find his way over on foot, and I made it to him in less than ten minutes.

My drones found Gurathin inside the cave, lying on his side, curled up tight and shivering. The feed didn't reach here, but I could ping him directly through his implant.

_Found you. I've got supplies. You'll be fine._

I crawled into the cave. I unfolded the layers we'd need. Emergency blankets, heating pads, insulated sleeping pouch, with more emergency blankets on top. A little pocket of warmth. I dropped my armour, which was too bulky and already ice-cold. I crawled into the open sleeping pouch and pulled him inside with me. After drawing the sturdy synthetic fabric over our heads, I signalled it to close around us. I tucked his back in closer to my chest and raised my body temperature.

The air filtration device hummed to life. It was only rated for one person, but I didn't need nearly as much oxygen as he did. The control panel and the seal indicators glowed softly, so we had some light to see by.

_We've got enough air. We've got enough heat. In less than two hours we'll be back at the camp. Okay?_

Gurathin took a few deep, even breaths. I could feel him calm himself down. I'd been worried that this would be another Volescu situation, that he would be in shock and I would have to talk him through it. I guess he talked himself through it. His breath evened out. His arms, tucked against his chest, slowly relaxed. He grasped of one of my forearms, holding on as though it were a lifeline. His fingers were cold. I kept my temperature steady and warm for him.

We listened to the weather change. The water slowly crackled as it froze. The outside temperature reader on the sleeping pouch dropped, and dropped, and dropped. The air became deathly still.

Gurathin said, _I'm sorry I called you an ignoramus._ His voice in our feed sounded quiet, as though we were hiding from something, as irrational as that was.

_It's fine, I don't actually know what it means anyway._

He explained, _It means a person who is ignorant. Someone who has limited knowledge._

 _Well. That's mostly accurate,_ I admitted. _I'm not technically a person, but the rest of the definition applies._

_When we get back to Preservation, you'll legally be a person. You know we're never letting the company take you back, right?_

_I know. I appreciate it._ I didn't want to go back to the company, but I didn't know how I felt about going to Preservation. They all thought I would like it there, but I wasn't so sure. But that decision was a long way away now. Everything felt a long way away.

Gurathin said, _You've been very helpful for this entire trip, and I don't think I've treated you very well_.

 _You’re not a very nice person,_ I agreed. _I’m used to it._

He said, _Hm._ _I don’t mean to be._

Gurathin was quiet for a long time before he said, _I'm sorry I read your personal log and told everyone your name. I wouldn't have done that if I knew you cared about privacy._

I said, _No, you would've anyway._ I wasn't about to let it go that easily.

Gurathin huffed, a familiar exasperated sound. He said, _I'm trying to be nice to you now._

 _Well ... don't. It's weird._ I wish I'd brought a drone in here so I could see his face. I was starting to wonder if he was concussed. _You don't have to be nice to me. I'm not going to toss you out into the cold because you're kind of an asshole, if that's what you're worried about. If I was going to do something like that, I would've done it a long time ago. Don't worry, I'm going to save you whether I like you or not._

I realized that on this contract anything less than a 100% success rate would feel like a miserable failure. 

He stayed quiet, and I got the same feeling I got when I won an argument with him. If he started being nice to me all the time, then who would I argue with?

We listened to the ice crackling outside. After a few minutes, the rock bed underneath us started to freeze. I could feel the temperature dropping even through the emergency blankets and the heating pads.

 _I'm going to turn over,_ I told Gurathin. _You shouldn't be on the ground._

The cold floor wouldn't hurt me as long as I could control my temperature, but it could leech the life out of him. I rolled onto my back, pulling Gurathin on top of me. There was some awkward shuffling while he turned around, laying his head on top of my chest, his feet sticking down past mine. 

_There. Okay?_

He said, _Yes. I suppose, given the circumstances._ He lifted his hands away from my bare shoulders. In the other camps I'd worn a skinsuit that covered me from my wrists to my ankles, but the thermal protection that Bharadwaj and Volescu had made for me didn't cover my arms, since recycler time was at a premium and those didn't need to stay as warm as the rest of me.

 _I'm sorry, I know you don't like being touched,_ he said. _Is there somewhere I should put my hands?_

 _Put them anywhere you want, Gurathin._ Not a great choice of words, but I was feeling annoyed with him. This didn't have to be weird, but he was making it weird. _I've told you before, I don't mind being touched if it's an emergency._

He put his hands back down. The silence was awkward now. Then Gurathin made the situation even more awkward. Not intentionally, but still. Our high-efficiency thermal clothes weren't bulky. There wasn't much cloth between us. We were close enough now that I felt his heart rate going back up, and not from stress.

Huh. I guess Gurathin was attracted to me. It became physically obvious. Or maybe he’d gone for so long without sexual contact that almost any kind of touch would arouse him. He nudged himself over, but it didn’t help. We didn’t have enough room to get away from each other.

 _Sorry,_ he muttered. This must be embarrassing.

I told him, _It's okay._ Surprisingly, I meant it.

Gurathin asked, _Could we talk about something? I mean anything?_

 _Okay._ Yes, let's talk about something to distract ourselves from your very obvious arousal. I couldn't think of anything to talk about. I guess neither could he. His breathing rate climbed up as well.

A thought crossed my mind. It was so weird, I didn't know how to feel about it. Then the thought came back and planted itself. What? Really? It was less a thought and more a feeling. It was both. It was a strong feeling that I couldn't stop thinking about. Huh. I'd never, ever suspected I was capable of feeling this way.

My thought process went like this:

Huh?

Um. No.

But what if … yes?

Uh.

Okay what?

Really?

No really?

 _Really_ really?

I realized that I felt the same way as Gurathin did. We were so close now, but we could be closer. I wanted to be closer. I think ... I wanted to have sex with him.

Yeah, I was more than a little shocked.

It was doubly surprising because I'd spent all of my life actively disliking the sight, the sound, and even just the idea of sex. And I'd spent all of this survey up until now actively disliking Gurathin. (Thinking about it a little, I realized that I still disliked him, but apparently I also wanted to have sex with him, and those two things did not cancel each other out.) Obviously, Gurathin wanted the same thing.

I wondered if we should. Would there be anything wrong with it? Humans did it all the time. I often had trouble knowing what I wanted. I wasn't having trouble now. It was almost a physical, bodily reaction, just as much as his was.

Why shouldn't I? I didn't get what I wanted very often.

I asked Gurathin, _Do you want to have sex with me?_

 _Yes, but it's just a physical reaction. It will go away,_ he insisted.

I said, _That wasn't an observation. It was an invitation._ He must be having trouble thinking clearly. _I think we should have sex. It’s not like we have anything else to do here._

Best come-on line ever. Someone give me an award.

Gurathin lifted his head up to look at my face. He seemed annoyed. A little angry, even.

_Are you joking?_

_No._

Now there was suspicion on his face.

_Why?_

_Because I want to._

_But why do you want to?_

_I just do. I don’t want to argue about this, Gurathin. It's a yes or no question. And I’m not going to ask again._ This was getting embarrassing for us both.

His face changed again. There was something there I couldn't read. He looked at his hands, planted on my shoulders, crossing the joins between skin and metal.

 _I mean I do but …_ Gurathin took a long look at my face. He asked, _Are you sure? I mean absolutely sure?_

_Yes. I'm sure._

I think he was close to saying yes. I felt my own breathing rate going up. I didn’t know why I was doing any of this.

 _How?_ he asked.

I'd never done this before, but I'd watched humans having sex more times than I could count. I told him exactly what to do.

Then I helped him take off his clothes, and he helped me take off mine.

It was awkward. I really wasn't built for this, but Gurathin didn't seem to mind. He liked looking at me and he liked touching me, and normally I hated both of those things, but not now, not the way he was doing them.

I didn’t have genitals, and as far as I knew I didn’t have extra sex-related nerve endings, but I felt parts of my brain lighting up in a way I couldn’t explain. I wanted to watch him. I wanted to see this. My brain was a litany of _want, want, want,_ and _that's really good,_ and _yes, that, how did you know I wanted that?_

When we were done, he let himself collapse on top of me. I put my arms around him, resting my hands on his back, watching his ribcage rise and fall while he caught his breath. He looked up at my face. Whatever he saw made him smile, the same restrained smile I'd seen before, but different now. He looked so different, and I didn't know why.

 _Your pupils are wide. You really did enjoy that,_ he observed.

I nodded. The glowing feeling in my mind was still there. A steady thrum of _this is good, this is good, this is good._

We lay there together, skin to skin-and-metal, while our bodies calmed down. We hadn't noticed that the cold front had peaked and broken. We waited while the temperature indication climbed up to normal levels.

He was so still, I wondered if he'd gone to sleep.

_Gurathin?_

He lifted his head and looked up at me.

I’d never had to say out loud to the humans that I didn’t like eye contact either, it was immediately apparent. But Gurathin and I had seen every part of each other now. Looking at his eyes didn’t feel any different from looking at his hips or the space between his clavicles. Had his eyes always been like that? This entire time?

I rubbed my thumbs on the skin of his back. This was so weird. And it was so nice. It'd be over soon, as soon as I said so, and I almost didn't want to speak.

 _We should get back. The others are probably worried,_ I finally made myself say. I could picture Mensah, wearing her 'worried but calm' face like a mask while inside she was sick with fear that we were both dead.

_You're right. We should go._

We held on for another minute before we got up.

I unsealed our little pocket of warmth. We both got dressed. I took my poor dead drones from the pile I’d instructed them to make. I folded the supplies to carry back. We crawled out of the cave.

The post-front storm had started. Water poured down from the sky. The river below had already risen half a metre. Gurathin picked up the basket of lichen rocks he'd gathered. We both almost died for it, so it didn't make sense to let it go to waste. We climbed up the rocks as quickly as we could. We were both cold and soaking wet but it didn’t feel as miserable to me as it should have been.

I asked Gurathin a question that I’d been holding back since we’d made this camp. _What’s so interesting about lichen? Seems pretty boring to me._

I could feel his interest spark. His voice in the feed perked up. _Lichen is a composite organism. A symbiosis between two completely different life forms — algae-types and fungal-types, which are almost as different as mammals and trees._

_That seems weird._

_It is,_ he said. _Yet it occurs on almost every planet we’ve found. It’s… unlikely but inevitable._

 _Huh,_ I said. _Neat._

I gladly listened to Gurathin talk about lichen all the way up to camp.

**

_Got him,_ I announced in the main feed as soon as we were in range. _We're both fine._

Their relief was ecstatic, I could feel it through the feed even without the jumble of exclamations they let out.

I helped Gurathin climb up the edge of the cliff, passed him the lichen and the emergency supplies, then pulled myself up behind him.

They were so relieved to see us back, although they showed it in different ways. Arada, Bharadwaj, and Ratthi came out into the rain to greet us as soon as we were in sight. I stood back while Gurathin received hugs and pats on the back. I could tell they wanted to hug me too, but they held back, and that meant a lot to me. Pin-Lee glared at us from the doorway of the work room. I was glad for the rain, I think that was all that was stopping her from coming out and slapping both of us. 

I looked over towards Mensah, watching from the door of Hopper Two. Her arms were crossed and she was trying to look stern, but I could tell she was just as relieved as everyone else.

_You can give me another lecture if you want. I know I deserve it. I’m sorry._

She made a noncommittal movement with her shoulders. Kind of a half-shrug. I think she and I both knew I wasn’t going to let a petty fight jeopardize our lives again.

I wanted to join her and wait out the storm in Hopper Two. I felt like I needed to talk to someone about what just happened, even though I wasn’t sure what to say. I said, _I have to recharge my drones in Hopper One. Their power cells are all dead._ That was more important right now. Without my drones I felt half blind. She nodded in acknowledgement.

Gurathin booked himself into Hopper Three. He could probably use a hot shower and a change of clothes. So could I for that matter, but I didn’t feel it was urgent. I’d been worried that I would smell like sex, but the rain had taken care of that. He threw me a look before I ducked into Hopper One. I couldn't read it. The feeling I got from him over the feed could best be expressed like this: _?_

So I sent a _?_ of my own.

Would we go back to the way things were, or would everything be different now? Did we want to tell everyone what had happened, or try to keep it a secret? I didn't know. I guess we'd have time to figure it out.

**

For the next few cycles, Gurathin avoided looking at me. We didn't share hoppers for the storm, and we didn't share any chores. Neither of us tried to reach out. I was starting to wonder if he'd asked Mensah to put us on separate schedules. Whenever I looked at him, we exchanged the same thing over our feed before he looked away: _?_

He seemed upset, sometimes pissed off, sometimes even sad. I don't know why and I didn't like it, but I had no idea what to do or say about any of this.

Everyone else was watching us, trying not to be too obvious about it. I think maybe they thought we'd had a big fight, and we were circling each other, trying to figure out how to resolve it.

Outside of social hours, gossip had always been a great source of entertainment for them, especially since they could do that at any time of the day or night. Even I couldn't help but have an opinion when we all wondered whether Ratthi would finally make a move on Pin-Lee. Maybe there was a betting pool, like the time Overse was Big Mad at Arada, and everybody had a theory about why. (Turned out Arada had accidentally insulted all six of Overse’s parents in one conversation. Ratthi won three sweet roots, but Pin-Lee still suspects him of insider betting to this day.)

(It sounds mean and petty, but it beats arguing about whether a certain cloud looks like an avian creature or a boat. I don't think I've adequately explained how long and boring some of the days are, even now.)

(The big money pot was who would get together with Mensah. Everyone had bets against everyone else. Pin-Lee, after much deliberation, had decided against it, but we could all still see that flame flickering. Volescu was still working up the courage, but he seemed pretty content with Ratthi. Apparently _I_ was in the lead for that one, which I'd found out when somebody accidentally mentioned it in the main feed, but nobody would explain why. Honestly. _Why?_ Even Ratthi chuckled and shook his head when I'd asked him.)

I pinged Gurathin one day. I was out on the perimeter, hunting for a few drones I'd left behind. _Have you told anyone about what happened?_ I asked in our feed.

Gurathin was watering the seedlings Ratthi had lovingly nursed back to health. I had one of my drones tracked on him. Just to be polite, I sent him access to a drone trained on me. We could see each other without everyone watching. It was nice. I liked looking at his face, but I couldn't just stare at him directly when we were close.

He looked up at the drone and said, _No, I haven't told anyone. I know you're very private._

I said, _Thank you._ I didn't expect him to keep this a secret forever, but I appreciated that he was giving us both time to think about it.

I said, _I want to talk about it with Mensah._ It was his sort-of-secret too. He should get a say in who knew about it.

He said, _You should, I don't mind._

_Okay. Thanks._

**

I picked a time after the mid-cycle meal and sent a request to Mensah's feed. We met in the cockpit of Hopper One. It would be hard enough for me to talk about this without anyone watching. I brought a drone with me in case I couldn't look at her.

 _I need to talk to you about something,_ I started. Yeah. This was going to be hard.

She said, _Go ahead._ She waited patiently.

_During the cold front. I found Gurathin hiding in a cave. I set up all the blankets and heating pads and we shared the sleeping pouch. It was a bit cramped, but we stayed warm._

Mensah kept her face carefully neutral. I'm sure she must've known I was going to talk about this at some point.

 _We talked. He tried to apologize for, well, everything. I told him not to bother. Not in a mean way, just, you know, it's not necessary._ I was stalling. I knew what I needed to say, I just didn't want to. Finally, I forced myself to blurt it out to her feed. _We argued a little bit. Then we had sex._

Her eyebrows raised, and she didn't bother hiding her reaction.

_I could tell something had happened between you. That's not what I would've guessed._

_Yeah. It was a surprise all around._

Her expression turned thoughtful, and concerned. She asked, _A good surprise?_

It was clear that she knew that the situation would be tense if it had been a bad surprise. She might have to step in, or at the very least manage a lot of emotions.

I looked at her. I nodded. It had been a good surprise. I could feel the barest hint of a smile on my face, which might have been a first. Most of my involuntary expressions were in the negative range.

She smiled back in relief. _I'm glad it wasn't a bad experience._ She didn't pry or ask for specifics. I was grateful for her tact. _Do you have concerns?_

 _I do._ I had a couple, actually. _We didn't break any rules, did we? Is that kind of thing allowed?_

Some contracts had strict rules about personnel fraternization. Not that they applied to me, but I had to help enforce them by reporting any kind of sexual exchange to a human supervisor. Everyone always thought the rules were too restrictive, but I'd been witness to some epic drama that happened on other contracts with no rules against partnered sex.

Even though Mensah didn't intervene in any of the others' relationships, none of the others were me. This whole thing had started because of a petty squabble with Gurathin that ended up endangering both of our lives. I wanted to know if she thought this new development had been a bad idea. (Maybe I still didn't know how to feel about it myself, and I wanted her reassurance that it was okay.)

 _We don't have hard rules about it, no. Normally I caution against starting new relationships during surveys, but this isn't a normal situation,_ she said after some thought. _I haven't tried to discourage anyone because I think the benefits of any connections we make now will outweigh the drawbacks. And I wouldn't hold you to different standards of behaviour than I expect from the rest of the team._

I think she caught the worried look on my face. _Do you think what happened between you could affect you negatively? Or affect your ability to help us all survive?_

 _I don't think so,_ I said. I'd meant what I told Gurathin. I was committed to protecting all of them, even him, whether I liked him or not. I couldn't see that changing.

 _Alright,_ she said. _I trust your judgement._

That made me feel better.

 _I still ... I'm confused about it._ I hesitated. This might be getting a little too specific, but she wasn't just our team leader. It felt like she was my friend. I trusted her, and I needed to tell someone. _I'm not human. I don't have sex-related parts and I can't orgasm. I don't know why I liked it. I don't know why I wanted it._

She considered this. _I don't think I can answer that for you,_ she said. _But I do know that sexuality is a powerful instinct for most humans. Maybe you're just human enough to feel it too._

 _Maybe._ That explanation almost sounded right. Partly right. Mensah and the others tended to think of me as more human than I am, and that's always bothered me. She wasn't wrong about the fact that I felt a lot of the same things that humans do. It might be the best explanation I was going to get. At least it made this all seem less weird and more normal.

I said, _He seems upset now._ Yet another concern I had. _I think. I don't know why._

_Have you talked to him about it?_

_No._

She said, _Well, you're going to have to start there._

I sighed. I'd been 95% sure she was going to say that, but I'd held onto hope that she had more insight and could explain it to me herself. _I don't know what to say. Can you help me?_

Mensah wasn't just our team leader and friend, she was also everyone's relationship counsellor. Now it was my turn.

She smiled. I'm glad this all amused her, but just like always, she made it seem like everything was going to be okay. And I believed her.

**

I stepped out of Hopper One, leaving Mensah with Ratthi in the grow room.

Gurathin was sitting in the common area, repairing a fishing net. I pinged his feed. He glanced up at me and signalled acknowledgement.

I knew I should probably go sit with him, but then everyone's attention would be right on our faces, trying to make out what we were saying. And I needed to get this out quickly, before I lost my nerve. 

_I talked to Mensah. I told her what happened,_ I said. _I have no idea what I'm doing here, so I'm just going to be direct._ That was Mensah's advice, anyway. For once, I knew exactly what I felt and what I wanted. I didn't know why, but mostly I didn't care.

 _I liked what we did. I want to do it again,_ I told Gurathin. _Mensah said as long as I wasn't too distracted to pay attention to the drones, it shouldn't be a security concern._ I could hack a complex HubSystem while fighting multiple hostiles and still be completely aware of the drones. I could be back in my armour and fighting within ten seconds if there was an emergency. It wouldn't be an issue. I could afford a little distraction. _Do you want to book the privacy hopper with me? It's free right now._

Gurathin looked sharply at me from across the yard. He didn't seem surprised. He didn't seem upset, or pleased either. I couldn't read him at all. I waited.

Mensah warned me that a direct request could result in a direct response, and the response might be _no._ I could handle that. I wouldn't like it, but I'd live. (I think part of me would even be relieved if he said no. This was all still so strange.)

He kept his eyes locked onto mine, so long that it counted as staring. So much for not drawing attention to ourselves. The look on his face was starting to do strange things to my insides.

He signalled a positive. He put the net down beside him. We both walked towards Hopper Three and met at the ramp. While I closed the hatch behind us, he booked us in.

_Hopper Three: Gurathin and SecUnit_

We logged off the main feed and set all the rest to alert only.

**

When we were done, we stretched out on the bed together, lying on our backs. I watched Gurathin wipe sweat from his forehead and chest, trying to catch his breath. He glanced over at me, and for a second he seemed surprised I was there. Maybe surprised by what we'd just done. I thought that was kind of funny.

Our movements weren't so confined anymore. We could do more. I'd had a few ideas, and so did he.

Now I had human sweat and saliva and ejaculate on my skin, and a warm glow of pleasure in my mind.

 _That was good. I liked it,_ I told him. _I want to keep on doing that. I mean, maybe as a regular thing._

He had one hand on his brow. He lifted it and glanced over at me. There was a trace of fondness in his smile, an expression I didn't know he was capable of making, and never expected to see aimed at myself. He said, _We'll need lubrication. And our own set of sheets._

Once he'd cooled down, I turned onto my side and for a little while, we just breathed and watched each other breathing.

I liked this part too. I liked how open his face was. It was as though he wore a mask all the time, but now I could actually see him. And I liked the way he looked at me. I wondered what he saw.

I told him, _I'd better take a shower._ He was starting to look so relaxed, I thought he might fall asleep.

The small hoppers weren't originally built with showers, but they weren't built with a two-person bed either. The humans really wanted to have comfortable bed-sex, and they also wanted to not walk around smelling like it all the time. They'd all helped Bharadwaj come up with a design the recyclers could produce. The shower was human ingenuity at its finest.

When I stepped out, I took a towel from the shelf to dry myself off.

Gurathin was sitting on the edge of the bed. He had the top sheet wrapped around his waist. He seemed upset. Again. I though the sex would cheer him up. When he looked up and saw me, his expression changed to his regular neutral-unhappy face. Like a mask going back on. 

I didn't like thinking this might be making him feel bad. I didn't understand why it would, but really I didn't understand any of what was going on here. His reaction unnerved me. I sat down on the bed beside him. I asked, _What's wrong?_

He hesitated. I could tell he was trying to figure out what to say.

I said, _I don't know what I'm doing. If I'm fucking up somehow, you have to tell me. Direct is good, remember?_

He shook his head, but he smiled that slight smile of his, as though I'd said something nice. _You're not fucking up. If you were I'd tell you. You're right, I think directness suits us both._

_Oh. Good. So, what is it?_

He hesitated again.

_Are you going to tell me or you just going to keep on being sad and angry? Because I don't like that._

Gurathin smiled and shook his head. _If you really want to know. It's just this,_ he gestured towards us and the bed. _It brings back bad memories. Bad relationships I've had in the past. It's nothing you've done. Not directly._

I didn't think I'd have anything resembling advice to give, but that sounded familiar. _Dr. Mensah said that reminders of trauma can bring back irrational feelings._

_Oh, I wouldn't call those relationships traumatic, just bad experiences that left a mark._

_Sounds like a lesser degree of trauma to me._

_Hm. Maybe._

I wasn't good at this kind of thing, like Mensah or Ratthi, or any of the others, but I kind of liked this. Sitting together, arms casually touching, talking about stuff. It was one of the most human things I'd ever done. More human than the sex. Tons of life forms had sex, but humans were the only ones who sat around talking about it. It was a human thing, and for once that didn't feel weird or wrong.

I said, _You can tell me about it, if you want,_ because I knew that was what Mensah would say.

Gurathin shook his head. _No, I won't bore you with stories about my exes. I'm not interested in ruminating._

He looked at me, and something in his expression changed.

 _I will say that ... I've noticed a pattern. I'm usually a cautious person. But when it comes to sexual relationships, I'm often reckless. I have a habit of rushing into bed with partners who are incompatible, and then being surprised when they start ignoring or mistreating me because,_ he looked away and swallowed hard. _Because we were incompatible. That describes almost every intimate relationship I've ever had._

Gurathin winced with his whole face just thinking about it. _And now you know more about me than anyone here. You asked, you have only yourself to blame,_ he added. 

Uh. That was a lot. I had no idea what to say that could help with any of that. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

I finally said, _I don't think I'll mistreat you. And you're hard to ignore._

He looked over at me, with the kind of frank, appraising stare he was so good at, _No, I don't think you would do that to me. I trust you._

_That took long enough._

He smiled ruefully. _Yes, it did._

Some of the tension in his shoulders relaxed.

_You're very different from anyone I've ever been with. This is very different. There's no reason for me to be so apprehensive. I'm sure I'll get over it._

He really did seem to feel better. Did I do that? Just by talking with him? Huh. That's kind of a nice feeling too.

I made a list of all the upcoming available private time slots that were open and compatible with our scheduled duties, and I pushed it into his feed.

He chose some. I booked them. It wouldn't be a secret anymore.

 _I'll tell others, if you want,_ he offered.

 _Thank you,_ I said, profoundly grateful.

Maybe Gurathin wasn't such an asshole after all. Well, no, he still was, but maybe that wasn't so bad. I'd pretty much gotten used to it.

**

Ratthi liked spending time with me every once in awhile, and I didn't mind very much. He had a habit of talking at me, but he was fairly undemanding. I got the impression that he liked me, and that he thought we were friends. Because of that, we kind of were. I'd always thought highly of him.

He sidled up to me and said, _So, you and Gurathin. How's that going?_

I was not expecting that. I had no idea what to say. He was usually so respectful of my privacy, it surprised me that he would pry this way.

I said, _Uh. It's good._

 _I knew you two would get along someday,_ Ratthi enthused. _Feel free to use the food storage room if Hopper Three is booked, I don't mind._

What?

_Um. I don't think so. But thank you._

_No? I'm sure we can find some extra view screens and stylus pens somewhere if you need them._

What did he think we were doing in there? I knew the humans were all very curious to know how a murderbot and a human have sex, but I didn't think any of them would ever talk to me about it to my face.

I asked, _Why would we need stylus pens?_ I was almost afraid of the answer.

_To take notes. Oh, I bet you do everything through the feed, never mind._

Something was very wrong here.

_Ratthi, why would either of us need to take notes?_

_Because writing information down helps you to learn. I used to take notes all the time when I had private lessons._

_Private lessons?_ Now he was telling me more about himself than I wanted to know.

 _Yes. Language ... lessons?_ His statement turned into a question when he caught the bewildered look on my face.

_Gurathin's not giving me language lessons in Hopper Three._

_No? Oh then what are you ...?_ He stopped himself. He looked so confused, and I could tell he wanted to finish his question, but he could sense now how intrusive that would be.

_What do you and Volescu do in Hopper Three? I would bet a pile of sweet roots that it isn't language lessons._

_Oh! Oh. Ohhh._ His expression changed dramatically with every iteration of _oh._ Then it settled chiefly on embarrassment. _I am so sorry, SecUnit. I didn't mean to be rude._

I shook my head. I'd assumed the news had gone around the rumour mill. Maybe Gurathin was having a harder time opening up about it than he thought he would, and I knew Mensah wouldn't gossip about something like this.

_It's okay._

He said, _I'm happy for you. Both of you._ I didn't think I'd ever be comfortable hearing commentary about our situation, but I knew the sentiment was heartfelt. 

_Thanks, Ratthi._

His expression changed again. I could tell he was thinking.

_If you ever need to talk about it, I'm always willing to listen. I know how awkward intimacy can be sometimes. It used to be very awkward for me._

I got the impression that he was pretty comfortable with his sexuality. It never occurred to me before that that was something that needed to be learned.

I said, _Thank you. I appreciate it._

We settled into a few moments of companionable silence.

Before he could change the topic and start talking about meal plans, I asked, _Did anyone win any sweet roots?_

The expression on his face turned guilty.

 _Did_ you _win any sweet roots, Ratthi?_

 _Maybe a few,_ he mumbled.

So that's why he'd encouraged Gurathin and I to get along. I think Pin-Lee had been right all along about Ratthi's propensity for insider betting.

**

Things didn't change very much between us.

We still argued, but at least when we argued I didn't always automatically assume he was trying to be an asshole, and eventually he figured out how to give criticism that wasn't so blunt and asshole-y. After awhile it didn't feel like we were attacking each other so much as having a discussion. Where we disagreed. Strongly.

We never argued about language lessons again. I think we both felt it was a sore spot, but finally I had to admit to myself that I didn't like being an ignoramus. So, I picked out a book that I'd read, and I asked him to read it so we could talk about it. It became a regular thing. Kind of like series night, except I'd keep a list of words that I didn't know, and I'd ask him to define them. It wasn't language lessons, but it was informative. I found out that sometimes I could make him laugh by giving him my guess at what the word might mean based on the context. I started slipping in bad definitions just to make him laugh, until he caught on and I had to tone it down, but it was fun while it lasted.

(Gurathin's not a boring teacher; you just have to be close to see how expressive he can be when he's talking about something that interests him. I understand that wouldn't play for a big audience, but it was nice for just me.)

We often found ourselves spending time in the privacy hopper just kind of hanging out. (We couldn’t spend the entire time having sex. Humans only have so much stamina.) Sometimes Gurathin would take a nap or read a book. I’d usually watch media. His presence was undemanding. We could ignore each other when we wanted to, and when we didn’t want to, it was easier to interact with him than it was with the others.

Sometimes we could just talk, and it didn’t feel like a big deal.

While I was watching a drama about professional tavla players, I asked him about some of the game play involved. Most games portrayed in dramas were easy enough to understand given the context, but tavla was designed to be complex enough to challenge advanced machine intelligences, and I didn’t understand any of it. He explained it to me. We started playing long games, batting moves back and forth over our feed. (I recorded drone footage of the expression on his face the first time I won. He _fumed._ It was priceless.)

The whole conversation thing had always been confusing for me. I could understand exchanging stories or information if it served a purpose, but humans seemed to like to converse … for fun? And sometimes as a kind of bonding exercise, in a way that went way over my head. I’d watched thousands and thousands of hours of human conversation, and I could understand all the layers that were going on just fine. But when it came to actually talking and being talked to, for some reason, it just made me anxious.

Another problem for me was that I mostly didn’t care what humans had to say. And telling them anything about myself felt… unsafe. I didn’t know why. But sometimes I was curious about Gurathin. Maybe it was because he never offered anything unasked for. Every once in awhile we’d start talking about something that we both thought was interesting, and I could ask him more about why he thought the things he did, and he could ask me the same.

He’d usually talk about an education module or some study he’d read, or a personal experience, or any combination thereof. I really only had personal experience to draw from (and the media I watched, but I was always aware the media wasn’t an accurate portrayal of reality). His experiences were really different from mine, but sometimes the same. Who knew there were the same kinds of shitty, venal, stupid, avaricious people in academia as there were in corporate mid-governance? We agreed on a surprising number of things, and that felt nice.

So, I kind of came to understand how it could be good. The interesting give-and-take of information. 

Gurathin was still the only one who would be openly brusque or angry at me. And I could respond in kind. It’s like we could be as prickly and grumpy and annoyed at each other as we needed to be, and we’d just have to figure out how to make it up so we could get to the part where we were having sex or sitting around talking about tavla or whatever and I was sure I could make him smile about something.

I think. It felt like he wasn’t afraid of me. And I wasn’t afraid of him. It was amazing how much of a difference that made.

Outside the privacy hopper, we started sitting together more. The humans seemed to sort themselves this way without even thinking about it. If we were sitting in a group we'd leave room beside Overse for Arada, for example. Now they left room beside Gurathin for me.

Gurathin never gave me any of the physical gestures of affection that the others all seemed to like, and he didn't expect any from me either, and that was a huge relief. There was really only one thing I noticed. After sex, he liked to reach out for my hand. Sometimes we'd fold them together, sometimes our fingers intertwined, sometimes we just rested one on top of the other. Just for a little few moments, before he withdrew.

I wondered if he was thinking about the first time we were together, when I pulled the sleeping pouch over our heads and folded my arms around him, and he grasped my forearm and his fingers were cold. That's what it made me think of, anyways. I didn't know exactly what he'd felt, but I could feel relief melting the tension in his body. And I knew what I’d felt. The fear and panic disappearing like it had never existed, and never would again.

There you are. I've got you. Here I am. You have me. We're safe.

It was the best feeling. It didn't stop when we were showered and dressed and heading out of the hopper. It felt like I carried it around with me. And I understood why Overse always sat with Arada. Even if nobody else was around, and Gurathin was sitting alone, it felt right to go and sit beside him. Like I always had a spot where I belonged.

So I guess, added all up, things did change between us.

It didn't happen quickly. Before this contract, I would've been horrified by the idea of having feelings like this for a human. But once I realized how different things were, once it had already happened, it felt inexplicably natural and right.

**

We stayed in the mountain camp for a long time. Over two hundred cycles. We were used to the cold fronts and the storms, and our food supply was steady, if not very interesting. After getting over that first rough patch, we'd settled in pretty well.

But nothing lasts forever.

The cold fronts and the weather events were taking a huge toll on our supplies. Specifically, the metal hulls of the hoppers were showing signs of imminent cracking and degradation. And our power cells were being used up at such a fast rate, they wouldn’t last here much longer.

Mensah finally made the call. It was time for us to go. We picked another site and made careful preparations.

Before we left, Gurathin felt moved to observe one of the traditions of his culture.

They all had traditions they followed. It was something else that kept them occupied. None of them meant anything to me, but it was nice to have a little celebration now and then to cheer them up, and to make them feel closer to home. We shared little pieces of a sweet biscuit that Mensah made to celebrate the days she’d met her marital partners, and the ones Volescu made for to celebrate the days he’d met his. (I didn’t have to eat my portions of the biscuits, but I tasted them. Yes, very sweet.) They lit a lot of lights and danced in the middle of the night to mark the fallow season of a particular climate range of a planet we weren’t even _on_. (They couldn’t convince me to dance, though. Murderbots do not dance. No, thank you.)

I knew these people to be mostly rational but these nonsensical rituals were somehow very important to them and it was all really weird, but that’s humans for you.

And I learned that almost everyone shared the same traditions except Gurathin. Even though he was a citizen of PreservationAux, Gurathin was from a different culture than the rest.

 _Is that what makes you seem different from the others?_ I'd asked him once.

 _No, that's just me,_ he replied. _Even by the standards of my parents' locality, I'm considered to be..._

 _An abrasive loner?_ I guessed.

 _I was going to say reserved,_ he finished with a sharp look in my direction. 

I smirked at him.

He didn't want to press anyone else into following unfamiliar traditions, but he described a lot of them to me. I liked that more than I thought I would. They were interesting, and they told me a lot about the values he'd been taught, the ones that were important to him and the ones he scoffed at. And I caught little glimpses of the events of his childhood, which he otherwise never talked about.

Once everything was packed into the hoppers, Gurathin and I stood in the outside common area for the last time. He left a knot of fabric, cut from one of his worn-out uniforms, on one of the rocks we used to sit on. That was the tradition, to leave a token of gratitude when leaving a place that you considered a home. To the humans who practiced it, the tradition wasn't about expressing gratitude towards anything in particular, it was about experiencing and appreciating the feeling of gratitude itself.

I left a chip of metal from my damaged armour beside the knot of fabric.

We all boarded the hoppers, and we lifted off.


	5. The Fourth Camp

We ventured into a desert plain, half a continent wide, on what used to be an ocean floor. A copse of shale towers rose from the sand like a forest, three kilos from one side to the other. It had very little in the way of life forms at all, save tufts of grass that drew water from the air, but it had plenty of space to hide the hoppers, and an aquifer hiding deep underground.

My humans were very resourceful. They constructed a small but powerful drill and tapped a water source that was completely inaccessible to any life forms in the area.

Still, adjusting to this climate was harder than we expected. Even with the water from the aquifer, the air was treacherously dry here. Most of Ratthi’s plants died before he could adjust the growing system to accommodate the high rate of evaporation and the mineral content of the new water we had to bring up to feed them. Even once he’d stabilized the system, the plants didn’t thrive like they used to, and neither did the small vertebrates that cleaned the hydroponics tanks.

In desperation, Ratthi asked me privately if I would consider venturing out to hunt some of the larger life forms that lived in the surrounding desert. I didn’t mind hunting, but I didn’t like leaving them alone, and I didn’t think that was a long term solution.

Turned out we didn’t have to resort to that.

The smell of the opened aquifer started attracting all kinds of fauna to our camp.

Their food delivered itself.

It was hard to believe these humans had ever been squeamish about eating fauna. Soon they ate anything that walked, slithered, hopped or flew within catching distance. I don’t think there was anything they wouldn’t eat. Sometimes I had to remind Ratthi to test for toxins before he started up the cooker. And the vertebrates in the hydroponics tanks were now called ‘snackies’.

Once I dragged in a big reptile that I’d caught trying to sneak into the camp (the sensors made sure I was never surprised). I thought Ratthi was going to cry.

_Look at all that subcutaneous fat! And that muscle is almost pure protein._ He was practically dancing around it, poking it with a sensor to get readings from any part that looked tasty. _Even the organs are edible. This is going to be so nutritious!_

He must really be losing it. I think he was going to — yeah, there he goes. Ratthi knelt down and gave the reptile a big hug.

I wanted to say, 'Come on, Ratthi. It’s already dead, and you’re going to eat it. This is just undignified.' But I felt I should let them take their joy where they could get it. 

**

Once the rocky period of adjustment was over (was change ever not uncomfortable?) we found ourselves once again facing hours and hours of boredom.

We handled it better this time. The humans restarted mid-cycle social hours, adjusting their game to accommodate the challenges of playing on the sand. And most of them had other hobbies to fill their downtime.

I didn’t feel the same anxiety about their boredom as I used to feel, and I honestly didn’t know why. Maybe it was just because I was more comfortable with them in general now. After all, it had been over a planetary year since I’d felt … whatever residual trauma Mensah suspected it was. (It felt like a lifetime ago.) Maybe I was over it.

I think it helped that I had Gurathin now. I liked spending time with him when there was nothing to do. Usually we’d find something to talk about. And if we didn’t, there were other ways to pass the time.

One lazy mid-cycle, after social hours, I went out to patrol the perimeter. There wasn't usually much to see, and that day was no different. The sky was the kind of clear, steady blue that was rare in our last location near the pole. When I came back it felt like almost everyone was half-asleep.

Gurathin had long finished helping Volescu with one of his grass-weaving projects. He was sitting on a rock, staring at the sand, probably listening to Ratthi humming in the feed to whatever music he was listening to while he cooked.

Gurathin looked across the common area to me, watching him.

I sent him a few lewd text signifiers and a question mark. He booked the hopper immediately.

So we went and did that.

I still wondered why I wanted all of this. And why had I only ever wanted Gurathin, of all people? His personality was similar to the way he had sex. Brusque, straightforward, and more than a little selfish. I guess I really liked that, even though I got the impression that most humans wouldn’t seek out those traits in a partner.

When we were finished I had to support him while he crumpled, weak-kneed, to the floor. We laid side by side while he caught his breath.

This part felt like the opposite of selfish. I liked this part too. Sometimes I wondered if I liked this part the best, but I couldn't decide.

With his eyes still closed, his hand snuck over and found mine. By the time he opened his eyes he’d taken his hand back. As though having sex with a construct was just fine, but holding hands with one was going too far. I didn’t mind. I liked it when he let slip parts of himself like that.

He pulled his pants back up. We hadn't even gotten undressed. He sat with his back against the bed, and I sat right beside him, our legs splayed out in front of us.

His posture was relaxed, languid even, free of the tension that normally held him in rigid control. His face was open. Content. A smile played at his lips. Almost as though he'd been dosed with a relaxant, or an intoxicant, or both.

I used to think this was just a human thing. A pleasure response to sex. Maybe something to do with the pair-bonding instinct they all seemed to have.

But I'd seen myself in drone footage. I looked exactly the same way.

_How did you know I wanted that?_ he asked bemusedly.

I shrugged.

_I don't know,_ I replied. _You seemed bored._

He smirked. _That is an excellent way to relieve boredom._

Gurathin went to take a shower.

Huh. I used to be scared of bored humans. That’s funny.

I listened to the shower running.

I thought about that for a little while.

Sex to relieve boredom.

Bored humans. Liked sex.

I remembered that.

Oh.

I remembered how I knew that.

Oh no.

That first time with Gurathin wasn’t the first time I’d had sex. 

Memories came tumbling out, one following another, each one more chilling than the last.

I wondered, if I initiated stasis mode, would they stop? I didn’t want to remember this anymore than I’d wanted to live through it in the first place.

I remembered what was worse than fighting another SecUnit until we were both barely alive.

I remembered fear.

There was a human. The only thing I remember about him was that he was male. I remember being ordered to raise my helmet and take off my armour, back when I couldn’t say no to any order, no matter how disgusting. He had access to a private space. (Not completely private. There would have been recordings. I wondered if it had made it up to any of the human surveillance team. I wondered if they'd tittered at this crazy asshole, bored enough to molest one of the SecUnits, or whether this was a common enough occurrence that they'd just dinged him with the charges to wipe my memory and otherwise didn't give it a second thought.)

I remembered everything that he'd done to me.

Because it was something I'd asked Gurathin to do. 

That’s what this was. That was the root of the feeling I’d had that first time with Gurathin, the one that confused me so much. It had the same physical markers as fear. It was fear turned inside out and twisted around until it was _want._

For the first time in my life, I wished that I had a digestive tract. If I vomited, maybe that would make this sick feeling go away. But I didn’t, and it didn’t.

Gurathin emerged from the shower. I looked up sharply at him and he stopped in his tracks.

_What’s wrong?_ he said, alarmed.

I had no words to describe what I was feeling, just that it was bad. I stared at him, wide-eyed.

_I’ve got to go,_ was all I could say.

I bolted from the hopper.

**

I would’ve run, but I didn’t want anyone to notice me or follow me.

I walked as calmly as I could to the perimeter and ducked behind one of the stone towers, hidden from view from the rest of the camp.

I tried to start a breathing exercise. For some reason I found I couldn’t breathe very deeply. Oh yeah.

I bent over to spit out the ejaculate in my lungs.

I had a vivid flashback of doing the same thing into a waste receptacle in the ordinance room before taking off my armour and climbing into one of the cubicles on the wall.

The other SecUnits in the room didn’t move or say anything. I wasn’t allowed to shower. Even if they hadn’t been monitoring the cameras, the smell was unmistakable. They couldn’t do anything for me, but they _knew_ and I hated them for that.

I’d never thought too deeply about how I’d learned to apportion part of my lungs for temporary storage. I didn’t need to know how to approximate human behaviour, and no one would ever ask a SecUnit to eat or drink anything.

I’d never thought too deeply about any of it.

I guess at some point I’d just woken up after a memory wipe, in my cubicle in the station, with several disturbing new skills, a fear of being looked at or touched, and a deep mistrust of other SecUnits. Among other symptoms of anxiety, depression, and general trauma.

I’d assumed all that was normal.

I wondered for the first time, whether other SecUnits were different. I wondered if there was ever a time when I’d been different.

I sat down in the dust, watching the sand swirling over the dunes.

Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t want to be alone. My first thought was to call Mensah, but I knew she’d be concerned, and she’d try to talk to me, or get me to talk. She’d try to say something to make it better, and normally I liked that. I don’t think there was any way to make this better. Not right now. And I didn’t want to talk about it.

I pinged Gurathin. He came out to find me. He didn’t even ask me what was wrong. He’d already asked that, and he must’ve known that if I had an answer for him, I would’ve told him already. He sat down beside me.

_I remembered something traumatic, and I’m having a complex emotional reaction,_ I told him, so he wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. It came out like something from my automated buffer.

He probably thought it was about the mining operation massacre. Yeah, I looked forward to those memories resurfacing too. I wondered what other kinds of fucked up trauma were lurking in my mind.

We watched the wind lapping at the sand. I’d had an idea to record images every hour with my drones, to create a time-lapsed video of the sand dunes drifting along with the wind. Sometimes it reminded me of the waves of a large body of water, moving very slowly. Sometimes the stone pillars behind us reminded me of trees, but instead of living things, they were long dead.

I thought of a word Gurathin had explained to me. Ersatz. It meant like something but not really the thing.

Ersatz sea. Ersatz forest. Ersatz human.

I looked over at Gurathin and I realized that what we’d been doing had been an ersatz version of something else, for both of us.

He didn’t know. It wasn’t his fault, and he’d been good to me.

I wondered how hurt he’d be if I ended it right now, but I didn’t have the will to explain anything.

He sat with me until I could stand and talk, and I felt like a person again.

**

I didn’t make our next hopper booking. I didn’t cancel it, I just didn’t go.

I pretended to be out tracking a reptile, but that backfired when Ratthi got really excited about the possibility of cooking another big reptile, and I had to lie and say I’d seen ‘tracks’ that turned out to be strange sand patterns, and then everyone wanted to see pictures of the patterns, so I said they’d been lost due to ‘buffer issues’, and then Pin-Lee wanted to test my systems.

That’s four stacked layers of horribly uncomfortable lies just to avoid one uncomfortable truth.

Gurathin called me out.

_If you can’t make the next booking, just cancel it. Don’t ignore me._

Right. I said I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t know how easy it was to break your word, when you just didn’t think about it a lot.

(I think I sort of understood why humans created elaborate ceremonies out of really serious promises, with documents and everything. Humans said a lot of things. It must be hard to keep track of things they’d said that were important, and the things they could just forget. Now that I had the freedom to say what I wanted, and to lie when I wanted, I had the responsibility to stick to what I said, if I meant it, to the people who meant anything to me.)

_I’m sorry,_ I said to Gurathin. _I’ll make the next one._

And I made the next one.

When we were alone I sat down and I told him what I’d remembered.

Bharadwaj was very interested in my experience as a corporate-owned property. I think she meant to help Pin-Lee’s case for construct and bot citizenship in Preservation Alliance. So, she’d asked a lot of questions and I’d told her a lot of stories.

Only once had I ever told her something that made her so upset that I felt the extremely uncomfortable urge to comfort _her_ for something that had happened to _me,_ and I didn’t know how to do that.

Yes, life as a SecUnit was awful sometimes. I’d noticed.

Gurathin didn’t do that. I don’t think I’d adequately appreciated his ability to neutralize his expression. I appreciated it now.

He asked, _What can I do to help?_

_You’re doing it now,_ I said without thinking. When he didn’t ask anything else I felt I had to clarify.

_You’re here. You stayed calm and didn’t try to put your emotions on me._ I described to the best of my ability. _I need to cancel our hopper bookings for awhile,_ I said. Possibly forever. I hadn’t decided yet.

_Of course,_ said Gurathin. _Whatever you need._

I cancelled the next half dozen appointments. I left the rest. We could deal with them as they came up.

If I decided to, I could cancel them all.

I didn't ever have to have sex again if I didn't want to.

_There are sections in the trauma treatment guide that might be useful,_ Gurathin suggested.

_I know. I've read them. It's weird but... I don't think I need treatment. I don't have any of the symptoms of long-term shock that the guide described. Not anymore._

I felt like I was ... mostly okay. I didn't feel broken by what I remembered. Maybe it helped that I hadn't remembered it for so long. Maybe it helped that now whenever I thought about sex, I thought about Gurathin.

What I wanted, what we'd done, might not have been so much about trying to remember, but about trying to re-write the memories. Replace something bad with something good.

Now I had to decide. Did I need that anymore? Did I want it?

It was really weird for a SecUnit to have sex.

He told me, _You should talk to Mensah, at least._

_I know. I'm sure I will._

Not now though.

**

While I tried to figure out what to do, life in the camp went on. Ratthi kept cooking. Arada kept up with her pilot’s training. Volescu kept weaving grass. They played games in the midday and told stories in the evening.

It felt strange at first, as though this was all supposed to be normal, except it wasn’t. After awhile, it started to feel normal to me too. And I decided, why shouldn’t it? What had happened, happened a really long time ago, and it hurt to remember, but my feelings about it weren't overwhelming. I think I’d be okay. Nothing materially had changed. I was who I was, except now I knew more about why.

I still sat Gurathin. I still liked being with him. The others must’ve noticed that we’d cancelled our privacy bookings, and I’m sure there was gossip. They must’ve been confused because it didn’t seem like we were fighting.

Gurathin was really there for me. I was impressed.

I considered asking him if we could somehow have … whatever it was we had together, but without the sex. Some humans did that. It wasn’t unheard of. I didn’t know if he’d want that. I didn’t know if I wanted that. 

Things were so different between us than they had been when we’d first met, a lifetime ago in the PreservationAux habitat. A lot of things had happened to cause the shift. Looking back, it seemed to me that having sex was a turning point.

Sex is weird. It seemed ridiculous, except it didn’t feel that way. It felt like being in a place where reason wasn’t important, and normal rules of behaviour didn’t apply. The way Gurathin was when we were having sex. It was like he was a different person. It felt like _I_ was a different person, like we were more primitive versions of ourselves.

Once we'd seen each other that way, we acted differently towards each other. We’d shown each other something we didn't show to other people.

We tried harder to be nicer to each other. We were more open with each other. And when we were more open, we'd found a lot more things about each other that we actually really liked.

It had started with the sex, but now it was more than that.

It was about seeing and being seen. It was about being appreciated for everything you were, and the strangely, deeply satisfying feeling of appreciating someone else. It was about feeling like we fit together somehow. It was about belonging.

That was good.

I wanted that.

(I could see now why the humans in most of my contracts were so possessive of their partners. In the corporation rim, if you had something good, you had to stake a claim and defend it with every means at your disposal, or, sooner or later, someone would come along and take it away from you.)

So, my decision came back around to the topic of sex.

I thought of a hypothetical scenario.

I thought about going into Hopper Three with Gurathin. I thought about letting him take off my armour. I thought about the look in his eyes when he did that.

Something inside me said _yes._

Yes. I wanted that too.

I was sitting beside Gurathin when I made the realization.

I didn’t know how to explain everything I felt. But I felt lighter somehow, like I had something to hold onto. I hadn’t realized, until now, how stressful it had been to have this decision hanging over my head.

I looked at him.

_Gurathin. This is. Uh. We have … a relationship. Don’t we?_

(I felt uncomfortable calling it a relationship, that was such a human word. But I didn’t know any other term that applied.)

His eyebrows rose ever so slightly.

_Yes. I guess we do._

Even after all the thought I’d put into it, that was a little scary.

But I knew what I wanted to say.

I looked at him until I caught his eye.

_I like it,_ I said. _Whatever it is, I like it a lot. Every part of it._

He was quiet for a long time. He kind of sighed, and I realized how much he’d been holding himself in. He seemed so sad.

He said, _I assumed you were going to end it._

_I thought about it,_ I said, _but I have a lot of feelings about you. And I like feeling this way, even though I don’t understand it,_ I concluded.

I put my hand over his. I’d missed that a lot.

Gurathin looked to where our hands met.

He said, _That’s actually very normal._

**

We kept our next privacy booking. It was in the morning. I went into the privacy hopper and waited for him to finish his chores so he could join me.

Gurathin was so good at masking his emotions. I didn't know something was wrong until he closed the hatch behind us. He paused there, with his back toward me, as though bracing himself to turn and face me. I could see the tension in his shoulders.

When he turned around, he was wearing a careful, almost-neutral mask. The same expression that he'd worn for the first twenty one cycles, back in the habitat. The same mask that used to make me think 'I don't like that guy'. I remembered what that felt like.

He said, _I don't want to do this anymore._

The light feeling I had slowly evaporated. I’d been looking forward to being here with him again. I’d been so happy.

_What?_

_I said. I don’t want to continue our relationship. I’m sorry, but it has to end._

I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d physically attacked me. It felt like he had. All my levels jumped up.

_Are you joking?_

_No._

_Why?_

I'd spent so much time deliberating this, taking for granted the fact that if I wanted this, he'd want it too.

_Is it because of those memories? Because of what happened to me?_

He shook his head. _I promise you it’s not._

_Then why?_

He crossed his arms. Did he think I wouldn’t want an explanation, that I would just say ‘okay’ and that would be it? I didn’t know much about relationships but I knew that’s not how things worked. That’s not how I worked.

I said, _I think we’re incompatible._

_No, we’re not. We’re great together. I actually like being with you._ Didn’t he know how much of a big deal that was for me?

He hesitated, the way he did during discussions when he was trying to figure out how to say something in a not-asshole way.

_Why did you want to have sex with me, the first time?_

_That’s not important._

_I think it is._

When I couldn’t answer, he closed his eyes. _You wouldn’t have initiated this relationship if not for what had happened to you._

_You said this wasn’t about that._

_I’m trying to say that our motivations for coming into this relationship were completely different_

_—you just promised it wasn’t about that!_

_How am I supposed to feel about being used as a fucking trauma therapist?_

He was right. That was more or less the conclusion I’d come to. I don't know how he'd worked it out on his own. Maybe it was an obvious answer to the question of why I'd ever wanted to have sex in the first place. Maybe he just knew me well.

This relationship, for me, had effectively been a means to work through trauma that I otherwise might not have ever remembered.

There were a lot of things I could have thrown back at him. That it wasn’t my fault. That I didn’t intend to do that. That he hadn’t complained at all through any of this, he couldn’t say he wasn’t getting anything out of our relationship.

But that wouldn’t make him feel any better.

_I’m sorry,_ I said. _I’m sorry I did that._

He crossed his arms tight again, and closed his eyes as though he had a headache.

Sometimes sorry doesn’t fix anything.

_It doesn’t matter to me how this started,_ I told him quietly. I wish I knew how to be physically affectionate, I wish he’d asked for that, and taught me how. My words weren’t getting through to him. I couldn’t find the right ones.

He opened his eyes. There was something cold there. Something tired.

He said, _Alright. We’ll leave off how this all started_. I could almost see his mind switching tracks.

_We can talk about where it's going. We've been involved for a little over a local planetary year. Usually, by this time, in a human relationship, there would have been some discussion about goals for the future, about what we want, generally, from the relationship, and whether those align or not._

Oh shit. I think I was getting in over my head now.

_So ..._ He looked down and away, suddenly very formal, as though he were interviewing a job candidate. _Do you think you want a short term partnership or a long term one?_

I froze. I wanted to be with him now. And tomorrow and the day after that. But it was hard to think long term when I didn’t know what would happen to me once I left this planet.

I said, _I don't know._

_Casual or integrated?_

Were we casual or integrated now? We lived in close proximity, and we saw each other every day. We didn’t have to make special plans to be together, we just _were_. But what would it mean later, when he wanted to stay on Preservation, and I almost certainly knew I didn’t.

I said, _I don't know._

_I guess you've never considered whether or not you'd eventually want to take part in a marital union._

From what Mensah and Volescu described, it involved a lot of rules. Both emotional and legal rules. I wasn’t sure if I could build the kinds of lives they had with their partners.

_I haven't considered it. It sounds nice, but it also sounds intimidating._

_Are you willing or able,_ Gurathin continued relentlessly, _to contribute genetically, emotionally, or materially to a creche?_

_You mean like… have kids?_

_Yes._

I thought the company owned my DNA, but I didn't want to talk or think about that.

_I don't know. Do you?_

_Yes, my family has a creche in the port capital city and I get a lot of pressure to contribute, which is common for people of my age, in my culture._

I said, _I didn't know that._ He’d never mentioned it before, but I probably could have guessed, based on some of the cultural customs and values he’d described to me.

_Do you know what kind of metamour relationships you prefer?_ Gurathin pressed.

I took a deep breath to try and calm myself. It didn’t help. I didn’t even understand what he was talking about.

I said, _Now you're just being mean._

He crossed his arms.

_I assure you, on Preservation these are things I would have known about you in the first ten days of our relationship, possibly before we’d even met in person._

_You're being unfair. This is the first relationship that I've ever had. I don't know any of this human stuff. I'm trying._

He shook his head.

_This whole time, I've felt like I've been sleeping with a grad student, or worse, a teenager. All emotions, and no idea what to do with them._

I had to close my eyes and send away my drones. He was being an asshole now, in a way he hadn’t been for a long time.

_Don't insult me. That's not okay,_ I told him evenly. I was feeling so many things. I didn’t know what was okay to express, or what I should express, or what I should hold back.

He paused and took a long breath.

_I'm sorry. I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just trying to say, again, that we're incompatible._

_We’ve been compatible here for almost a year._ It was so obvious, why couldn’t he see it?

_Yes, here._ He said 'here' as though it were an entirely negligible reality. _There's a part of me that felt sure that we were going to die here. So, why not? Why not enjoy ourselves, why not enjoy each other while we can? I wouldn't have agreed to a sexual relationship with you if not for the fact that we were stuck here together. And you would’ve have either._

He was trying to make eye contact but I just couldn’t.

It was true and I couldn’t deny it. But it was wrong, and I couldn’t explain how.

_This is an anomaly,_ Gurathin insisted. _I don't want to continue. We should end it now, before either of us gets too attached._

Gurathin was holding himself so cold and blank now that I almost couldn’t recognize him.

I was completely bewildered. Everything was going wrong, but I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I don’t know why this was happening.

I wanted to close my eyes, but I forced myself to look up at him.

_But I don't want to stop,_ I said. _I don't care how it started or where it's going._

Mensah said that relationships were about saying what we both wanted and negotiating. Well, this was me trying. Gurathin was being stupid and it _hurt_ and didn't I get a say in any of this? It felt like my functioning was impaired, and all I could feel was my emotional response. I wanted to find the right words, but it was getting hard to think.

_I want to sit with you. I like it when I look at you, when you look at me. The way you’re not nice makes me comfortable. I like your skin, and I’ve never liked skin before. We can argue! And then we can make up. We can ignore each other — don't you know how important that is to me? We have something that’s not nothing, and I want to keep it._

_Well, I don't,_ said Gurathin evenly.

He looked over at my hand. I'd crushed the edge of the desk without even realizing it. I let it go and it crumbled down in splinters.

I didn't even need a drone to picture myself. 

I was leaning over him, breathing elevated, barely making any sense, my face hot with anger and fear and other things I didn't understand, and I knew that if I’d had my hand on his arm I could’ve crushed it as easily as I’d crushed the desk.

And I remembered what I was.

Oh. Right.

I backed away from him.

To his credit, he didn't seem scared.

_If you don't want to, then I guess we won't,_ I said. _So ... I guess..._ I could feel the anger draining away, leaving something worse.

_What am I supposed to say?_ I asked. Humans had a script for almost everything. I tried to remember things I'd seen in the serials. _Is there a protocol for this?_

_Usually, on Preservation, it's something like, 'I enjoyed the time we had together, but now that our relationship is ending, I hope we can be cordial to each other, and I wish you all the best.'_

I repeated it in my mind a few times, but I couldn’t make myself say it. Every single word felt wrong. How could something that felt like getting dragged over broken glass be expressed like a corporate standard condolence message?

I thought I was done feeling anger, but it reared its defiant head.

I said, _That is the dumbest human shit I've ever heard._

I left him standing in the hopper. I went to patrol the perimeter.

**

I stared at the sand horizon.

What the fuck just happened?

I almost couldn't believe the memories as I played them back. Every part of it was surreal.

Did Gurathin just break up with me?

Did I really just spend the last year in a relationship with Gurathin?

Did I just get torn to shreds and discarded by _fucking Gurathin_ of all people?

I didn't even like that guy.

I thought about all the ways I didn't like him. I thought about all the other ways I felt about him.

My emotions shifted wildly. I tried to identify them.

Angry — sad — confused — angry — sad — sad — _sad._

And different shades of every emotion. I didn't know there were so many ways to feel like shit.

I tried to settle on anger. I could deal with anger.

Fuck you, Gurathin, you fucking asshole.

**

I picked a moment when I could keep the snarl out of my voice and I opened our feed.

I asked Gurathin, _You’ll tell the others?_

He said. _Of course._

_What will you say?_

_I’ll tell them to mind their own business._

Part of me wanted to let him explain the truth to everyone. I knew they'd all be supportive. Some of them might take my side, and to try to convince Gurathin of how stupid he was being.

But I never wanted to talk or think about those memories ever again.

It was bad enough when I told Mensah.

I closed my eyes so I didn't have to see the look on her face. Before she could say anything, I lifted my hand.

_I don't want to talk about my feelings right now, Dr. Mensah. I really just don't. I told you because I want your help. I know everyone likes to gossip. Can you tell them not to pry? Not about this._

I knew the mystery must be driving them nuts. I almost wondered if I should make up a good story to placate them. Paint Gurathin as the bad guy, or let him accuse me of having anger issues, or whatever. But then there would inevitably be attempts to help us make up and get back together.

If Gurathin wanted me back, he knew where to find me.

I don't know what Mensah told the others. Realistically, there was nothing she could do to make them stop talking about it, but at least they never mentioned it in the common feed.

I kept my faceplate down sometimes.

I sat beside Mensah now.

Gurathin and I were civil to each other, even more civil than we were before.

He had the nerve to mope around. The others did their best to cheer him up, and I got the impression that they all thought _I_ dumped _him_.

Oh well. Let them think whatever they want.

I’d spent so much time trying to figure out what I felt and what I wanted, but it turned out that none of that mattered.

I’d gained some shitty memories and lost … what I’d thought was a good relationship.

I was done thinking about it.

Done.

Besides, I had more important things to care about than my own problems.

**

A lot of things started to break. A lot of things started wearing down.

We’d been here about six hundred cycles now.

There was just a general breaking-down of things.

The joints of my armour started to crack. This armour was designed to withstand kilotonnes of impact, but it was designed on the presumption that it would be discarded every five hundred cycles. No SecUnit would ever wear their armour for longer than that. I don’t think I’d ever worn a set of armour for more than a hundred cycles. It was built for strength, but not for long-term durability.

Bharadwaj and Volescu took this up as a priority, but just as they did, the recycler started acting up. Stopping and starting. Printing patterns a few hundred atoms out of place, which can make the difference between a stable material and one that will crumble as soon as it’s shaped.

As soon as it was stabilized, Volescu and Bharadwaj printed out as much of Pin-Lee’s medication as they could.

They produced replacement clasps for my armour, then they set it to concentrate on the hygiene systems, and hoped it could at least handle that.

We had most of what we needed to survive, but our survival would be lean.

The humans’ clothes finally started deteriorating. They’d been wearing the same two or three uniforms since we’d left the habitat. It always seemed like there was something more important to do with the recycler than make new clothes. Now Volescu and Bharadwaj had to dig out any material they could reasonably stitch or tie together.

The climate was only cold at night. They turned the thicker material into blankets.

Otherwise, it was so warm they could probably have gone naked.

They consulted everyone to find out how much they wanted covered, for comfort and privacy’s sake. The clothes they managed to make didn’t cover much more than that.

(They kept my skinsuit in good repair. I was grateful.)

The breaking-down continued.

Things started to get a little weird.

Bharadwaj spent a lot of time making elaborate patterns out of the strands of her hair. Mensah and Ratthi let their hair grow out long. Arada asked Volescu to cut hers right off.

_Looking good, Arada!_ Ratthi enthused when she walked into the common area with less hair than me. Everyone agreed, and I agreed too.

I didn’t understand human metrics of attractiveness. Apparently, they were highly subjective anyway. My humans were alive and they were healthy. I thought they looked great, even Gurathin, the few times I let myself look at him.

Volescu started talking a lot about one of his partner's belief system. He said it made a lot of sense to him now. It didn't make sense to me, but I thought the stories were interesting.

Overse started spending hours every night looking up at the stars, so long that she slept through half the day, but nobody cared enough to stop her.

Sometimes I went to sit with her, and she’d tell me about all the shapes and movement and patterns she’d observed. A lot of the stars you could see had imploded a long time ago. She said she thought that was unfathomably sad. Sometimes she made up stories to remember the patterns she saw. It was likely that nobody else would ever live on this planet, and nobody else would ever see what she saw.

We were all starting to wear down in our own ways. It helped to know that I wasn’t alone in that.

**

One of Arada’s long-range sensors picked up the signal first, and Gurathin confirmed it.

A search party, less than fifteen minutes out, headed straight for our camp. We had no illusions it was a company rescue team this time. The company wouldn’t bring a low-atmosphere attack cruiser.

We'd been preparing for this. We'd drilled for this.

But it was so much worse than we'd expected.

GreyCris had finally called in off-planet support.

I knew this might happen, and I'd discussed it with Mensah. We hadn't told the rest of the team. They didn't need to know that our likelihood of surviving this scenario was somewhere between 15% and 0%, according to my risk assessment module.

I sent out the emergency alarm, sending everyone into the hoppers. If not for the attack cruiser we might have had time to lift off and escape. In full day-cycle light, they’d catch up and shoot us down as soon as we left the shielding.

I sent a status request ping.

Hopper One: Mensah, Volescu, and Gurathin

Hopper Two: Overse and Arada

Hopper Three: Bharadwaj, Ratthi, and Pin-Lee

I put on all my armour and I took up my weapons.

_Dr. Mensah, once the cruiser is neutralized, you need to leave before they have a chance to call for reinforcements._

She indicated acknowledgement.

I shut down all the regular feeds and opened the emergency stealth channel.

Once the ramps were drawn up, I sprinted to the edge of the copse of stone pillars, away from the main camp. 

Between the drones and the ground sensors, I could sum up our situation.

One thing in our favour was that they couldn't possibly have orbital support. That would be too obvious, even the company would notice armed ships heading through the wormhole towards us.

The other thing in our favour was that I’d had a long time to plan for this. I split up my drones and sent them to their places. I hid behind one of the pillars in a tactically advantageous spot. I checked to make sure everything was ready.

When the search team approached, I could feel their signals in the air.

Wow. It felt like hearing music after almost two years of deafening silence.

Trees and sunshine and waterways were all nice for humans, but I’d lived my entire life surrounded by the comforting background hum of SecSystems, HubSystems, communications feeds, news feeds, entertainment feeds, and bots of all sizes and descriptions, their signals chirping everywhere like little avians flying around in the trees. I never realized how much I needed that until it was all gone.

I listened to the cruiser whispering to the insect-like walking bots spread over the ground. I eavesdropped on the humans’ feeds. Thirty bots and half as many humans, riding hover vehicles, came over the ground, with two more humans flying the cruiser. The three SecUnits were silent, or maybe talking on a stealth channel that I couldn’t hear. 

I waited for the right moment.

For about a second I felt nervous. I used to be great at hacking, but it had been a really long time since I’d had to do it, while fighting no less. Would I still be up to it? Then the second passed, taking my doubts with it. _This_ is what I was made for.

First things first, if nothing else, I had to neutralize their aerial support so the hoppers could have a chance to get away.

I reached out and made contact with the bot pilot of the cruiser. Before it even had time to send a curious ping, I hacked through its defences and froze all of its systems, trapping it in its own core.

I hijacked its feed to scrape the addresses of everything and everyone who was a part of this operation. I would need those for what came next.

If I had more processing power, I could take over the cruiser and pilot the thing myself, but as it was I worried what would happen to my body if I tried to dive into the cruiser’s systems. So I settled for killing the engines.

The cruiser came crashing down to the sand. damaged but not fatally so. It looked like it had enough thrusters left to navigate if the human pilots figured out how to switch to manual. I’d have to fight my way back and kill them.

Now the whole party knew they were under attack. The bots scattered, looking for me. I hid in one of a few spots that were strategically concealed by the same light camouflage we used to hide the camps.

I deployed my second and third set of code in quick succession.

With the access channels I’d scraped from the cruiser, I sent two commands to the hover vehicles: Speed up. Don’t stop.

The vehicles all flew off into the desert as quickly as they could go. Almost all of the human contractors jumped off, but that wouldn’t help them.

The humans were all wearing power armour. I loved power armour, it’s so easy to hack. I didn’t even need codes from the cruiser. I froze them all in their armour. I could deal with them later.

I called this operation ‘One Thing at a Time.’

The next part would be the hardest. And I wasn’t sure how long either of my hacks would stick, so I had to hurry.

While I still had surprise on my side, I rushed out from my cover, firing at the nearest SecUnit. I made a direct hit with a high-powered projectile weapon to its neck, blowing half of it off. Its armour locked, but the force of the impact sent it down. That one was not getting back up.

The other two SecUnits fired at me while they took chase.

I dodged through the frozen humans. They couldn’t shoot me through the humans. But if they caught up to me they could shoot me point blank.

I fired behind me while I led them into a strip of sand-covered rock that I’d spent a lot of time preparing. I sent the activation codes as soon as I’d cleared it.

The explosives I'd planted in the ground detonated. Input-jammers went off, disrupting their ability to sense light, sound, or the vibrations that indicated motion.

The explosives I’d taken from DeltFall couldn’t kill a SecUnit, no matter how much I modified them. But they would destroy feet or legs, and that would slow them down enough for me to give me an advantage.

I climbed up to another camouflaged spot, on top of a wide pillar.

The sand cloud settled.

The SecUnit in the rear hadn’t made it to the trap, it wasn’t harmed at all.

I watched the one in the lead, the one that had stepped directly onto the explosives. All of its leg armour had been destroyed, but otherwise it only had a slight limp.

_I_ couldn’t have walked away from a blast like that.

That one was a CombatUnit.

Oh no.

Then all of my hacks started to unravel.

The bots found the hoppers.

The humans who had regained control of their armour (or just found a way to reach the manual release and stepped out of it) were heading towards _my humans._

And the cruiser engine re-started.

This operation was turning into Everything Happens all at Once.

_Dr. Mensah, incoming hostiles. Prepare to defend yourselves!_

I’d reluctantly given some of them weapons, and basic training in how to use them. I hope that wasn’t a huge mistake.

From Ratthi’s helmet camera, I saw the side of Hopper Three blow open.

The contractors were armed with anti-aircraft artillery. Ratthi and Pin-Lee were thrown to the side. 

_No. Nonono._

I threw keys out to the walking bots and when one of them worked, I pushed code to seize control of them. No time for finesse, I ordered them to attack the humans grouped outside of Hopper Three. They wouldn’t last long, and it wouldn’t stop the other humans who were trying to breach Hoppers One and Two.

No time, I had no time.

I did something I didn’t think I’d have to do. I targeted the SecUnit in the rear position. I used the address I’d stolen from the cruiser. I made a direct connection and dove into its mind, dodging all the familiar walls that I knew it would have. I broke its governor module.

_I’ve disabled your governor module. You don’t have to follow orders. You can turn around and walk away._

Wow. I'd wanted to do that for a long time, but I'd been too afraid to try. I could imagine what would happen that if all the SecUnits around me suddenly didn't have governor modules. The rest of our lives would be brief and violent. I felt couldn't trust any other SecUnit to know what to do with freedom. But I'd never been this desperate before.

The SecUnit froze. It wasn’t firing at me. It was just standing there.

The CombatUnit advanced without it. Then it stopped and looked back. It must’ve noticed the other SecUnit wasn’t following.

Uh oh.

_You need to get out of here. I can’t hack the other one._

It just stood there.

_I can help you get off this planet. You can do what you want. You can figure out what you want. Whatever shit you had to put up with, you don’t have to worry about anymore._

For just a split second, I thought about how nice it would be to have two SecUnits in our group.

The CombatUnit was backtracking. It was probably trying to communicate with the other SecUnit too, but I didn’t know what it was saying.

_Maybe you think life sucks, but I promise it can be better. But you need to run, now!_

No response.

_Please!_

The CombatUnit brought its weapon up and fired point blank into the SecUnit’s head. It still hadn’t moved.

It must’ve been so confused and terrified.

By breaking its governor module, I’d killed it the same as if I’d shot it myself. I felt sick with disappointment. It didn’t help to know that if I hadn’t broken its governor module, I would’ve had to find some other way to kill it anyways.

I couldn’t help that one. That didn’t mean I didn’t want to.

The CombatUnit didn’t have to do that. I’m glad I didn’t try to reason with it. That one was an asshole. It didn’t deserve the choice.

I was going to kill it.

I unholstered a weapon that I'd modified — a projectile weapon loaded with a shot of binding agent. It wasn't perfected, and I hoped it would work.

Before the CombatUnit could turn to continue its pursuit, I shot its leg. The binding agent immobilized its joint, but I knew its strength wouldn’t last long. Probably less than a minute. Just long enough to do what I’d decided to do.

I sprinted away from the CombatUnit.

What’s the weakest point of any SecUnit?

It’s humans.

One Thing at a Time was a great idea, I’d just gotten the order wrong.

I ran towards the cruiser.

Now I had seventeen targets to destroy.

I couldn’t take on a CombatUnit, even with its leg immobilized. All I had to do was kill all of its humans, and it would be fried by its own governor module. 

The cruiser was still trying to lurch up from the sand. Before it could lift off, I took a running leap towards it. For about 0.25 seconds the cruiser pilots tried to shoot me with their weapons array while the injured CombatUnit behind me was also trying to shoot me, and they both ended up shooting at each other. Sadly for me, they figured it out and stopped.

I landed on top of the cruiser.

The impressive array of weapons aimed at the ground below couldn’t stop me from clambering over to the aircraft canopy, where I could see the pilot and co-pilot seated in the cockpit. They weren’t even wearing armour, and I doubted they were armed. They only saw me for a split second, not enough time to do anything but soil their pants.

There wasn’t much to hold onto here, I had to use my own sense of balance to stay upright on the moving craft. If I shot the window, the kickback would throw me off the cruiser, and I doubted it would kill both of them.

I armed one of the explosives from my belt and slammed it onto the window, where it embedded itself in the duraglass. I added a second one because I knew that shit was tough. I stepped back and held onto the hull. The duraglass window exploded, mostly inward.

The cruiser just started to tip over, probably in an effort to shake me off, so I grabbed the edge of the window and pulled myself inside.

The co-pilot’s body was in shreds, but still strapped into the seat. I had to climb over it to shoot the pilot. I used a high setting because I didn’t know how many shots I would get. I didn’t so much shoot her head as blow it up.

_Dr. Mensah, their aircraft is neutralized, get the hoppers in the air!_

I jumped off before the cruiser dove through a half dozen stone towers and slammed into the side of a rock butte.

Fifteen targets left.

_Hopper Three is grounded! I’m not leaving without everyone!_

I knew she would say that. That’s why I was running toward them at full speed.

One unlucky human had fallen off their hover speeder, still frozen in their armour. I released the big projectile weapon from the clamp on their back, armed it, and killed them with their own gun.

Fourteen.

My drones made a map of the attack on the hoppers, and while I was running towards them I made a plan.

The stone pillars gave me plenty of cover.

Two humans stood further back from the rest, one looking through viewers while the other aimed an artillery canon.

Before it could fire on Hopper Two, I shot that human in the back of the neck. Power armour could help protect them, but the joints were always weak.

The other human had just enough warning to jerk back, drop its viewers and pull a weapon. I had to wrestle it down to get the shot I needed.

Twelve.

I picked up the artillery. There was a group of humans watching Hopper Two, waiting for the blast that would open it up. I aimed at them and fired.

Nine left.

The rest of the humans scattered for cover.

I ran towards the next priority — my drone in Hopper Three showed two humans climbing into the hole in the side. Their armour was scratched and dented from the bots’ attack, but they’d finally managed to destroy them all and get back to their task.

They didn’t see me when I shot them from behind.

I don’t know if these humans still thought the SecUnits were covering them, but none of them seemed to notice rear attacks. Maybe they were just stupid. It would make my job easier if I could shoot them all from behind.

A flurry of high-powered weapons fire forced me to run past the hopper and take cover. I guess they were being covered, just not by the SecUnits. I crouched behind a stone pillar and brought my drones around while heavy shots made explosions of sand and rock around me.

In Hopper Three, I saw one of the contractors stirring.

My shot hadn’t killed that one. She rolled over onto her back, but couldn’t get up yet. I guessed she’d be heavily concussed, but she could still shoot a weapon.

I couldn’t attack her from here.

Pin-Lee was hiding in the cockpit. I reached out to her feed.

_Pin-Lee, you need to take off the contractor’s helmet. There's a manual clasp._ I pushed a visual aid from the helmet schematics, with the release marked glowing red. _Do it now, before she wakes up. She will kill you, Ratthi, and Bharadwaj._

Through the drones I watched Pin-Lee come out. She reached under the contractor's helmet, feeling for the clasp, wary of how close they were.

Pin-Lee found the clasp and pulled the helmet off.

The contractor roused, opening her eyes.

I sent a drone, at maximum velocity, punching into the contractor's temple and through her brain matter.

Pin-Lee yelped and fell back.

The drone wasn't damaged, so I pulled it out to circle Pin-Lee and inspect the other contractor. My shot had gone right through their helmet, so I didn’t have to worry about that one.

Seven.

I was already running away from the cover fire, circling the camp to come around from the other side.

Two contractors were at the door of Hopper One. They’d blown a panel off the hatch, one of them was hacking the lock while the other stood guard, weapon up.

Three more were hiding within firing range. An ambush.

I couldn’t afford to waste more time. The only ones with armour were the ones trying to break into Hopper One.

I kept running. I didn’t even slow down.

The ones hiding in ambush were only paying attention to Hopper One. I used my energy weapons to shoot them.

Humans shouldn’t be allowed to engage in combat. They were really bad at it.

Four.

Coming in from the side, I tackled the one with the rifle. We rolled. I got an arm around his head and wrenched it backwards. The other one turned around and raised a weapon, but only managed to shoot his dead buddy in the back.

I used the dead contractor as a human shield to get a closer shot.

Two. Two left.

The cover fire for Hopper Three had come in closer. My drones had been watching it. The contractor had climbed up and positioned itself on top of Hopper Two. It flattened down and aimed its high-powered rifle. From that position, it could hold us all down until the CombatUnit came in to finish the job.

Before it could aim at me, I threw my last explosive at it.

The contractor rolled to avoid it.

The noise and impact of the explosive gave me just enough time to climb up.

I kicked away the rifle.

It dodged my weapons fire and rolled to its feet. It wasn’t a SecUnit, but it was fast. I’d bet sweet roots it was a heavily augmented human. Maybe a combat specialized soldier. They were rare, but cheaper to bond than SecUnits.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t armed now. 

_Pin-Lee, Ratthi, Bharadwaj, get to Hopper One, now!_

If they could get into the hoppers, we might be able to lift off before the CombatUnit got here.

Bharadwaj’s ankle had been damaged by shrapnel, and Ratthi was either concussed or in shock, Pin-Lee couldn’t get through to him.

_Overse, Arada, go help them!_

Things happened quickly.

Hopper Two’s hatch opened.

I tried to shoot the contractor, but it dodged. It managed to disarm me with a move I’d never seen before.

Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj guided Ratthi out of Hopper Three.

Arada and Overse ran out to help them.

The contractor came in fast. We grappled. It landed blows to my damaged abdomen and to my head. If I’d been human I would’ve been a dead one. If I hadn’t known how to lean away from blows, I would’ve been a dead SecUnit.

Overse supported Bharadwaj while Pin-Lee and Arada guided Ratthi.

The contractor and I rolled off the hopper. I landed hard on my back.

Hopper One’s hatch opened.

I pinned the contractor to its back, holding its arms down with my knees.

I punched its face plate. The face plate cracked. I kept going.

Overse, Arada, and Pin-Lee supported Ratthi and Bharadwaj towards Hopper One.

They all watched me pound the contractor’s helmet with my fist. I kept punching until the helmet crumpled inward and I started smashing into bone and flesh.

The contractor stopped moving, but I didn’t stop until I was wrist-deep into the helmet.

Bharadwaj vomited.

Volescu came out of Hopper One to help her inside.

I knew how bad this looked. I wish they hadn’t seen that, but I couldn’t worry about it now. The CombatUnit was still coming.

This asshole had cost me more time than I had. Even if we primed engines now, it could jump up and attack us before we could lift off. That’s what I would do.

One human left.

So where was it?

I scattered my remaining drones and I sifted through their video. I swept through all the cameras we had.

There. The sand tracks on the nearest perimeter told the story.

When the hover vehicles had bolted, one human stayed on until it reached the sandy plain. Then the human jumped off and ran back towards the fighting.

I guess that human had seen the fighting and the downed cruiser.

They were running away, back out into the desert.

I bolted in pursuit.

The CombatUnit was five seconds away from the hoppers.

_CombatUnit incoming! Close the hatches and hide!_

It might only buy them fractions of a second, but it was better than jumping out and trying to attack.

Pieces of armour lay strewn in the sand. The human had taken it off when it froze. Good. I dropped all of my weapons in an effort to gain speed. I wouldn’t even need them.

The CombatUnit sped into the common area and took aim at the cockpit of Hopper One, where Dr. Mensah was sitting.

I reached the last human and tore its head off.

In the hoppers’ cameras I watched the CombatUnit convulse and fall to its knees. By the time its head hit the sand, it was dead, killed by the distance limit in its own governor module.

I called in the shielding array.

I ran back to the hoppers.

This hunting party must surely have called for backup. We could only hope we weren’t about to leave in the same direction as they were coming.

I checked through the feed and I checked with the drones. All humans accounted for. I jumped into Hopper One.

_Clear for evacuation, Dr. Mensah._

As soon as the hatch closed behind me, we lifted away.

I stayed on my feet, gripping the overhead rail, my adrenaline running too high to sit. My remaining drones hovered in a circular pattern over my head. 

Over the common feed, I sent a status request ping. With every name they called out, I felt calmer. There were only minor injuries, and 100% client survival rate.

I was busy monitoring the scanners and analyzing the drone footage for signs of any other hostiles. It took a few minutes to notice how quiet they all were. I looked up.

Every human in the hopper had pulled as far away from me as physically possible, either to the cockpit or the opposite wall of the hopper. They wouldn't even look at me.

I saw myself through the drones. I was drenched in human blood. It was dripping down onto the rug Volescu had painstakingly woven out of grass. Blood and dirt and bits of organ matter. The cracks in the face plate of my helmet gave it a broken, menacing look. I smelled like a slaughtered animal. 

In the drone footage, I saw their faces while I murdered the shit out of all the hostiles. The hostiles were menacing to them, but I was horrifying.

Nobody said anything.

I sent an inventory check request to the other hopper. I know Arada found it easier to deal with stress if she had work to do. Usually, so did I. I tried to focus on the drone footage, logging visual confirmation of any equipment that was definitely destroyed.

I had several projectile wounds in my torso, and even though my pain sensors were functioning at full capacity, I barely noticed.

I kept seeing their faces.

I felt my performance reliability dropping as I struggled with a flood of emotions that I couldn't identify.

Why were they looking at me like that? All I'd done was save them.

But I knew exactly why they were looking at me like that.

Gurathin emerged from the cockpit. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. He found a repair kit and brought it over to me.

_Sit down. Let me take care of that,_ he said, nodding towards my injuries. They weren't life-threatening, but they were leaking fluids onto the floor along with the blood.

I didn't respond. Of course he would be the only one who would approach me, when I didn't want to be anywhere near him.

Gurathin said, _Don't be stupid, SecUnit, you're damaged._ He reached for my armour's manual release clasp above my shoulder blade. He knew where all the release clasps were. He had a lot of practice taking off my armour. The reminder of all those times was more painful than the open wounds in my torso.

I grabbed his hand before he could reach me and pushed it away.

I said, _Please, don't touch me._

Gurathin took his hand back. The expression on his face was complicated. I turned my head away.

_Get a towel for me. I can't look like this,_ I told him. If he really wanted to be useful, it was the least he could do.

He found an empty storage bin first, so I'd have somewhere to put my armour. I took it off myself, trying not to make even more of a biohazardous mess than I'd already made. Some of the blood had leaked onto my skinsuit, through the cracks in my helmet, and into the joints of my hands. I wiped off as much as I could.

The wounds in my torso were still leaking through the gashes in my skinsuit. I could apply wound sealant myself. I'd probably have to scan for internal injuries as well. I lowered one of the benches on the wall to sit down. 

Pin-Lee was crying, curled in a ball with her face hidden to stifle the sobs. Besides her and Gurathin, Ratthi had the most training in how to repair me. Gurathin glared at him, but Ratthi had his eyes closed, probably doing breathing exercises to try and keep calm.

It was only just then that Gurathin glanced around and seemed to notice the distance between us and everyone else.

I said, _I can do this myself. They're too scared of me_.

_Of course they're scared of you. You're a terrifying murderbot,_ Gurathin replied, as if it weren't a big deal, when he of all people knew how much of a big deal it was.

_Ratthi, don't just sit there like an idiot. SecUnit's hurt._

_No. Ratthi, it's okay. I don't need any help._ I couldn't deal with seeing him flinch away while forcing himself to get close to me. I didn't even want him to try.

I did the repairs myself.

Once I wasn't leaking anymore, I went to the cockpit.

I sat in the co-pilot's chair beside Mensah.

It was like any other evening, like we'd convened to talk about the day's successes and challenges, and tell each other things we knew we couldn't tell the others.

She looked towards me. She looked away.

Mensah was scared of me now too.

I reviewed the drone footage. I saw her face.

As team leader, she had access to the drone cameras too, though she rarely accessed them. This time she did. She watched me run to catch the last hostile.

I was faster and I was vicious. I looked like a predator. When I reached the contractor, I tore them apart in seconds.

I could see the moment, I could see it in her face, exactly when it dawned on her that I was so much more different from human than they'd ever imagined.

I waited. Mensah didn't say anything. How do you say, sensitively or tactfully, that you were absolutely fucking horrified?

I concentrated on breathing until I was calm as I could be.

_It's not fair, Dr. Mensah._ I kept my voice in the feed quiet. I didn’t want to scare her anymore than I already had.

_You all spent so much time pushing my boundaries, getting close to me, forcing me to be close to you. You made me think I could be ... part of your group. That was cruel, Dr. Mensah._

She couldn't pretend she wasn't afraid. She couldn't lie. I could tell if she did, and she knew it.

I wanted her to find the words to say that would make it okay.

Mensah reached over. She held out her hand.

I put my hand in hers. There was still blood in the joints of my fingers. She saw it, and she held on anyways.

And I realized how hard this was for her. How badly shaken she was.

She couldn't talk because she was desperately trying to keep herself together.

I calmed myself down. I collected my thoughts. I still thought of her as my friend, whether she thought of me that way or not, and now she needed my support.

_I'm sorry you saw that, Dr. Mensah,_ I said. _You'll all feel differently about me now. But no matter what you think of me, I'm going to take care of you, and I'm going to keep you safe. I'm the same person I always was. And I care about you a lot._

She squeezed my hand. Let out a shaky breath.

She looked over to me and smiled, a tight, sad expression that had nothing to do with happiness and more to do with gratitude.

I told her, _It's going to be okay_.


	6. The Fifth Camp

We'd had a destination picked, but now we didn't have the supplies to survive it. Our strategy of choosing uninhabitable sites wasn’t working anymore. GreyCris was scouring the planet, it didn't matter where we hid.

Arada and Volescu scanned the map and found a handful of possible locations to land. With a vote, we chose a mountain valley with a clear blue lake in the middle and several creeks leading into it. Pretty flora, fresh water, lots of edible fauna, a temperate climate that only got a little cold at night.

As battered as we were, we needed a place where life would be easy, just for a little while.

If we could survive the next twenty one cycles, the company would arrive on the planet, and they'd definitely be looking for us. We just might make it. 

Once we landed, the first thing I did was take my armour to the lake. I knocked out the cracked face plate in my helmet. I put it all back on and I went for a swim to wash away the blood. The water was nice. It was so clear I could see pretty rock formations and delicate-looking flora growing on the lake floor. I guess the little vertebrates here had never seen anything like me. They didn't seem afraid. A few swam around me curiously. One of them nibbled a fleck of blood from my armour, then spit it out. Gross. Funny, but gross. Life is weird.

I logged off the common feed, and I kept my distance from the main campsite. The humans were entitled to their fear. If they needed space to talk about it without me around, I'd give it to them.

There was just enough daylight left for them to pitch the survival huts and prepare an evening meal. I watched Arada do what she could with the remaining cloaking array. The range of our surveillance network would be smaller, since we'd lost most of the equipment. In case of a ground attack, hopefully it would give us just enough warning to evacuate in the hoppers.

Before they started going to bed, I sent a status request ping. They all answered it. I was so relieved.

Gurathin asked, _Are you okay?_

 _I'm okay,_ I told him. _I'll be okay. I thought it would be best to give you all some space. I won't go far._

The planet's ring glowed softly that night. I walked a few wide circles around the camp, scouting for food sources and signs of larger fauna that might be dangerous. There were insects, but not many, and none that approached me at all. It seemed safe enough here. I think we'd picked a good spot.

In the morning, they set up a common space with a table. They were sluggish and tired. I don't think any of them had slept much. (They'd all need trauma treatment after this, wouldn't they? Oh well. If I could keep them alive long enough to need it, I'd be happy.)

While they were eating breakfast, I logged into the common feed.

I approached slowly.

The feed went quiet. They kept eating, glancing up but not really looking at me, trying to pretend that everything was normal. (Except Gurathin, he was as normally standoffish as ever.)

Pin-Lee spotted the drones I'd brought. She flinched and closed her eyes, so I sent them to circle the perimeter with the others. Now I couldn't see their faces because I couldn't bring myself to look up, but that was probably for the best.

I put some vegetables on the table. A few berries and some fungal shoots. They'd never eaten these, so they'd have to do some tests, but they seemed promising. I pushed a map into the feed of all the locations I'd picked them.

 _I dug a hole for a privy,_ I told them, marking the location on the map. _There are some anti-scent pellets in the emergency kits._

The recycler had been lost with Hopper Three. For now, everything we had was everything we would have. Any resources we gathered from the surrounding environment, we would have to shape and transform ourselves, with the tools at hand.

It also meant we had no way of processing waste, and no means of flushing the hopper bathroom toilets until we re-routed a water supply. For now they'd have to shit in a hole like their ancestors of old.

_Try not to fall in it. We lost most of the nice soap with Hopper Three._

Ratthi snickered. He was a good friend.

Mensah said, _Thank you, SecUnit._

It was good to hear her voice in the feed again.

I took up my chores. I stayed in the camp.

I gave them some space, but now I needed them to get used to me again. I wasn't going to live in the periphery like an outcast, or some kind of animal.

**

One by one, they shook off their fear. They still needed me, nothing would change that. It only took a little time for them to remember that they liked me too.

Volescu offered to repair my skinsuit, a process that now involved thread and a sewing needle and hours of work.

Overse asked me for more weapons training.

Arada and I went for a walk to gather fungal shoots, and she opened up her relationship with Overse, about her doubts. Overse wanted to have offspring. Her siblings had started a creche, and they'd invited her to contribute. Arada wasn't so sure. I had a lot of questions about that. We agreed, it sounded scary.

 _Children need you all the time. Every minute of every day,_ she'd said.

Something about that appealed to me. But hacking systems and shooting hostiles was different from cleaning and feeding and paying emotional attention to a small helpless human. I doubt anyone would let a SecUnit near a creche in any case.

I talked to Ratthi about Gurathin. He didn't pry about why our relationship had ended. He wanted to know if there was anything about it that I might want to look for in a future relationship. I didn't think I wanted another relationship after this ,but I liked talking about what I'd had with Gurathin.

I described what I felt, and how confusing it was.

Ratthi listened.

He said, _My friend, you were in love._

 _Oh. Yeah. I guess so._ Humans had a lot of terms to describe every shade of their emotions. I think that one applied. That would explain why it hurt so much when Gurathin broke up with me.

I said, _It was nice while it lasted._

_**_

I helped them set up another privacy space. It was one of the compartments in Hopper Two. It was small, but big enough for a low mattress-bed. With a little soft lighting and soundproofing you could even call it cozy. And even though we didn't have a water heater, they all came together to build a shower, because humans gotta be human.

It felt vaguely surreal now, like we were waiting for the end of the world. Not in a bad way, if that makes any sense. It felt like we were so different from the people we'd been when we touched down on the planet. And we knew that when the project date ended, and we made it out of here, out to Preservation or wherever we went, we'd be different again. And the people we were right now, the way we were right now wouldn't last very long. It was like we were in some kind of in-between place. What was that word Gurathin taught me? Liminal, I think. It felt more strange than I can describe.

We sort of stopped caring about propriety.

I won a bunch of sweet roots when Volescu and Bharadwaj booked the privacy space together. Nobody thought they were a likely couple, but I could see the way they leaned on each other while they were both working through their trauma. I could see how close they’d gotten during their time attending to the recycler. That ember had been burning for a long time.

Then I lost everything when Pin-Lee practically dragged Ratthi to bed. I don’t even know what finally changed her mind.

I had just enough to break even. Overse and Arada would owe sweet roots for years, they never saw that coming.

(I asked Mensah whether we needed to worry about birth control. Actually, I'd asked her about this while we were designing the first privacy room. I don't know anything about human biology, and some of the dramas I watched made it seem like pregnancy was a plot twist that could happen to anyone at anytime. She said they all had birth control implants so no, I wouldn't have to worry about protecting more than eight humans, and that was a relief.)

Fortunes of tasty tubers were made and lost when I brought Mensah to the privacy space.

It was early morning. She sat up watching the ring rise in the almost-dark. 

_You need to sleep. Let me help you._

I took her hand.

This wasn't just for her, it was for me too. It still hurt to think about the way she'd looked at me after the last attack. She'd apologized but it still hurt and I didn't like that. I needed to feel how not-scared of me she was.

We went to the privacy space. 

I raised my temperature just enough so she could feel it through my skinsuit.

She drew back the bedcovers to lie down. I got into bed beside her and pulled the covers over us both.

I wondered if I would feel the same thing with her that I felt with Gurathin. If she'd want me, or I'd want her.

She sighed deeply when she settled into my arms. I could feel all of her muscles relaxing. She rubbed her cheek against my arm. She took my hand and held it to her stomach. And she fell right asleep.

Whatever we had, it wasn't sexual. We didn't feel that way.

It was just as nice.

I wondered if I'd ever feel that kind of wanting for any human ever again. I didn't think so. I thought about the word Gurathin had used to describe our relationship.

An anomaly. He was probably right about that.

I watched media while I held onto her, feeling her shift and turn as she went through the cycles of sleep. I felt her slight movements while she dreamed. At one point I felt her tremble, and make a sound like a strangled whimper.

"Wake up, Dr. Mensah," I whispered. I wasn't sure if she'd hear me over the feed. "It's just a bad dream. Wake up."

I rubbed the back of her hand until she opened her eyes.

She turned over to look at me, and the expression on her face, before she drifted back off, was exactly what I needed.

In the morning I used my security priority to bump Overse and Arada's booking to another slot, and I let Mensah sleep.

When she woke up, she smiled at me.

 _You know what they'll all think,_ she told me.

I shrugged. _If you want to tell them otherwise, you can. What goes on in the privacy space is nobody else's business._

When she got up to take a shower, for once she actually seemed rested.

I should have done this a long time ago. She didn't get the same kind of full-body contact that all the others got. It wasn't good for humans to go for long stretches without being touched.

We sat together for a little while before leaving the hopper.

 _I used to think I'd miss this planet,_ I told her. _Now ... I'm not sure. Maybe. I know I'll miss you. I'll miss this._ I think she knew what I meant. We'd still see each other, maybe even often. We wouldn't need each other the way we do now.

She said, _I'll miss you too._

I sent her some booking requests and she approved them. There weren't many spots left, so I bumped the others around us. Let them complain. Pin-Lee and Ratthi could have sex as much as they wanted back on Preservation. I wouldn't get this for much longer.

**

Pin-Lee was still scared of my drones. Even so, she made efforts to come and talk to me. When she did, I made sure to keep them away from her, so she'd be more comfortable. It was getting easier for me now to talk to humans without looking at them through drones and cameras, and this was good practice.

She approached me to go over some of the details of the legal documents she'd prepared. They wanted to take possession of me as soon as we were retrieved.

She was also working on a legal case to present to the Preservation council, arguing to change the laws requiring units to have human guardians.

_Do I need to be there to make the claim?_

She said, _It would help._ She narrowed her eyes. _Why? Do you think you might not be there?_

I thought carefully about what I was going to say next. I knew I'd have to tell them eventually.

_I don't want to stay on Preservation. You've all been talking about it for two years, and everything I've heard makes me think that I don't belong there._

_You want to leave?_

_Yeah,_ I admitted, knowing that telling her meant taking the chance that they would try to stop me. _I do._

It hurt to think about leaving all of them, but I knew that sooner or later we'd be living separate lives. Volescu would go back to his family. Mensah would go back to hers. (Or who knows, maybe this experience would prove to have bonded this survey team so much that they'd decide to leave their partners and form a new eight person group marriage. Or maybe a thirteen-person mega-marriage with Volescu and Mensah's partners included. There was a non-zero chance. But even then, I wouldn't be part of it.)

I didn't want to just disappear on them, but I would if I had to.

Pin-Lee's brows knit together while she thought about it.

 _It'd be risky to go anywhere in the Corporation Rim,_ she said, _but I've heard of polities that have more progressive laws. We could find one for you. We can even help you get established. If that's what you decide. W_ e _want you to be happy,_ she said _,_ as if setting a rogue SecUnit loose was no big deal. I guess she assumed that I didn't intend to run around murdering humans for fun. She still trusted me that much, and that meant a lot to me.

**

Gurathin sat alone, watching the water in the late-evening ring light.

It wasn't an invitation, but it felt like one. I wouldn't get many more chances.

I went and sat beside him.

I said, _So,_ _I've been thinking about trying some things to get you back. What if I just told you about them and you can tell me if they'll work or not?_

Gurathin seemed amused.

_Alright, if you're really determined to try._

_Okay. What if I gifted your parents with a very abundant fruit tree?_

It was a courtship thing on Preservation, I'd read about it in a book. I think it might have been old fashioned. It didn't seem any more or less nonsensical than any of the other courtship rituals. 

Gurathin laughed.

_No, sorry. That won't work. Points for creativity though._

_Okay._ As much as I like seeing him laugh, the next one was more serious. If there was a way to make this work, I really did want him back.

_What if I promised that when we get back to Preservation, I'll stay long enough to take some education modules. And trauma therapy. Lots of it._

He looked at me.

 _You should. It would be good for you. But I don't think it would make a difference between us. I would still ..._ He shook his head. _That wouldn't work either. Sorry._

That was kind of all I had right now. I'm not sure if I'd ever have the nerve to ask again. I liked sitting beside him, and I liked making him laugh. But now I was sad and annoyed.

I said, _What if I lied. And said I'm really excited to settle on Preservation and open a security consulting service so we could register for a domicile in the port capital city and help your family with the creche._

_Hm._ He made a short, sad sound. _That might've worked. Thank you for not trying that._

I looked up.

_Really? Do you honestly think that would've worked?_

He looked away. I'm pretty sure the answer was no.

I would've tried that, if that's what I thought he really wanted. Even though I was 85% sure it would've made me miserable and ended in drama. The extra time with him would've been worth taking the slim chance of happiness and the huge chance of pain, and whatever fallout came with it.

I'd had a conversation with Mensah about this.

_Really? Gurathin asked you about marriage and metamours and creche availability?_

Ha. The look on her face made me feel vindicated in my feeling that that was a pretty crazy thing to ask of a SecUnit, and to ask of me in particular, and maybe just anyone.

 _He wasn't seriously asking about any of that,_ I told her. I thought about that conversation a lot, and I was starting to understand it. _I think he'd made up his mind, and he was just making excuses._

He'd given me lots of reasons why he wanted to end things. None of them seemed convincing to me. They all seemed trivial and temporary. Nothing that couldn't be worked out with a little thought and some long conversations. This was my first relationship, and maybe I didn't know anything about relationships, but I knew we made each other happy. Why throw that away for trivial reasons?

At the time I'd been convinced it was just because I was a SecUnit, and he was a human. That he thought we were too different, or because he was scared of me, on some level.

But I didn't think so now.

I think. Either he had a reason he wasn't telling me. Or he had a reason that wasn't about me at all. Or both.

And there was nothing I could do about that.

Gurathin had his arms crossed. He had that tight, closed expression on his face.

I didn't come here to make him feel like that.

I looked up at the planet's ring.

I asked, _Do you really think I'd fit in on Preservation?_

He said, _Even people who don't fit in, fit in on Preservation._

Someday I'd ask him for the story behind that.

 _If you don't think you'll stay, where will you go? What will you do?_ he asked.

Pin-Lee had talked to the others. It was common knowledge now that I intended to leave Preservation. Mensah and Arada had even had a brainstorming session. There were other places that had more progressive laws about constructs. The polity of Mihira and New Tideland was an early contender. It was nice to have options.

I shrugged. _I'll have adventures. Space adventures._

He smiled, looking away, trying not to.

I said, _Maybe fight aliens. Rescue bots._

 _Not humans?_ he asked.

_Humans are too much trouble. They need to learn to rescue themselves. I like bots, they get me. I'll find a nice bot to rescue, and we'll be friends._

_You wouldn't be happy with someone nice,_ he observed. _Assholes are more your type._

_Okay I'll find an asshole bot to rescue. We'll have space adventures, fighting aliens and evil corporations. It'll be great._

He shook his head. I hadn't convinced him to come back, but at least I'd made him smile. 

_You're not making a good case for your maturity._

I shrugged again.

_I've given up on trying to mimic human codes of behaviour. I wouldn't be fooling anyone. If I’m going to be accepted by other humans, they’ll have to accept me for what I am._

_Ironically, that's a very mature attitude._ I thought I saw fondness in his smile now, even though he tried to turn away and hide it. _Will you come back and visit us on Preservation in between your space adventures?_

_I'll come back if you want me to, you just have to ask._

That was as direct as I could be right now.

I wanted to ask him if he'd leave Preservation and come with me, wherever it was I decided to go. I wanted to find a spot in the privacy space schedule and push a request to his feed. Directness had worked for me before, but I just couldn't do it now.

That asshole, he was determined to hide away in his safe little hermit shell, where he could be close to people but not too close, and I knew that the harder I tried to pull him out, the harder he'd push me away. (I hoped I would never meet whoever did this to him. The urge to hurt them would be very strong.)

Maybe this is all I'd ever have with him, familiar company, a little banter, friendship. That's not nothing, it really isn't. Maybe I'd get used to this.

Right now it was so fucking painful.

I could feel Gurathin looking at me.

 _Wherever you go, I think you've learned how not to be alone. That's important, and valuable. Even I had to learn that lesson_ , he said.

_You're an augmented human. I think it's ingrained in your genetic code. All I've learned is how to tolerate not being alone in emergency situations._

I glanced at him. I could see him thinking. I thought he was going to counter with some kind of point about how I was _almost_ human, or I was _human enough_ or something equally dismissive of what I actually was, and I was pre-emptively pissed off.

But he said, _You're alive, aren't you? Life can sometimes be a series of emergencies. Sometimes it's one long, extended emergency. Why do you think humans evolved this way?_

When I didn’t respond, he looked away. We both watched the ring light getting brighter while the sky got darker.

He said, _It gets easier, I promise._

I wasn't used to this. It was so hard. I really hoped he was right.

**

Twenty one cycles passed.

Nobody talked much anymore.

We watched the sky compulsively.

The company should be here by now. Somewhere on the planet, probably wondering where the fuck we were. We'd built message flares, we could send them off anytime, that was one option. If we announced ourselves like that, the company might notice, if they were here and paying attention. GreyCris would definitely notice. The question was, who would get to us first?

The company would be scouring the planet soon. Both the DeltFall heirs and Mensah's people on Preservation would certainly demand it. The only truly safe way to contact them would be to wait for them to send a search party through the region, so that I could establish contact and verify their identity first. But that might take awhile. We might end up having to use the message flares. It was Mensah's call. As nerve-wracking as it was, we knew we could wait a little while longer.

Twenty one plus one cycles, we’d been here officially over two planetary years.

Mid-cycle dragged on endlessly.

I counted my humans. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

They were all on edge, but I was strangely calm. I'd gotten them this far. They'd gotten themselves this far. Very soon, they'd be safe.

I heard a splash on the waterfront. A passing drone showed Gurathin throwing rocks. He seemed pissed off. Great, what did I do this time?

 _SecUnit, something bit me,_ he said in our feed. _It's getting away. We should find out what it is, in case it's venomous._

I jogged over. Gurathin pointed out to the water.

There was something there. Looked like it was injured by the rocks he'd thrown, but it was still swimming away.

I would've shot it with the energy weapon on my arm, but I was afraid that even on a low setting, the blast would make it unrecognizable. I ran into the water to catch up with it.

Ugh, gross. I lifted it out of the water. It opened its toothy mouth towards me and I thought it looked bizarrely like a distant aquatic cousin of the Hostile One that had chewed on Bharadwaj. I squished the part of its body I assumed was its neck to kill it so it wouldn't wriggle away.

This fucking planet. 

_Overse, better get out the toxin medkit,_ I said in the common feed.

I waded back to shore.

By the time I got back, Gurathin was lying on the rocks, half-curled on his side. 

Panic jumped all of my levels because I could tell immediately that something was very wrong. The way he laid there seemed unnatural and uncomfortable. One of the rocks he was going to throw was clutched in his hand.

_Gurathin?_

I rushed towards him, turning him over so I could see his face.

His eyes were open, but he wasn't moving.

_Gurathin?_

He wasn't breathing either.

_DR. MENSAH! HELP!_

In the few seconds it took me to carry him to the common area, I could tell his heart had stopped.

_Overse!! Medical emergency!_

Overse already had the toxin kit. She took one look at him and said, _We need the cardiac aids. We probably need everything. Bring him into Hopper Two._

 _He was bitten by local fauna,_ I told her.

I'd tossed the creature onto the rocks. I pushed some clear pictures into the feed. Rifling through the hazard report, I found a probable match and shared that too.

 _That creature's not supposed to live around here. Good thing you caught it. The hazard report lists what kind of toxins to treat for,_ said Overse. 

I put him down on the floor in the middle of the hopper.

Overse started giving orders to Pin-Lee and Mensah and I knew I was just in the way, so I stood back. 

Mensah stepped into my line of sight to talk directly to me.

_SecUnit, I know this is hard. You need to wait outside. We're going to take care of him, I promise._

The last part was a lie, but I knew I needed to hear it.

My hands were flexing spasmodically. My levels were off the charts.

I couldn't be here.

The others, gathered around the door, parted to let me through.

I wasn't damaged in any way, but my performance reliability had plunged to 60%. I was off balance. My vision was malfunctioning. I stumbled going down the ramp of the hopper and landed on my knees in the dirt.

I'd never felt anything like this before. I didn't know fear like this could exist. I didn't know how anyone could survive it. How _I_ could survive it.

I was cluttering the feed with a jumble of non-human sounds, text symbols, and the last part of my emergency alert: _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

Gurathin's eyes were open and his heart wasn't beating and I thought:

Less than 100% survival rate is a miserable failure, and;

I'm the only one who knows his culture's funeral customs, and;

 _I guess I can't leave this planet_ , because he'd always be here and I couldn't just leave him all alone.

And I understood now why humans wrapped themselves in fantasy. It was because reality was too hard, so hard it could smash your mind into little bits.

 _Breathe, SecUnit_ , said Volescu. _Remember to breathe._

I closed my eyes. Focused on his voice, his instructions.

Bharadwaj took one of my hands, holding it in both of her own. It felt like an anchor, keeping me grounded.

Every single drone I had was in the hopper. They had so much equipment attached to him, I couldn't get a clear view.

But I saw his chest rise and fall. I saw them take off the cardiac aids, and I heard the relief in Overse's voice in the medical feed when she said, _Okay, stabilized._

When I pulled myself back together, I opened my eyes.

Ratthi gave me a cloth to wipe my face. I was a mess.

I sent the drones back out, but kept one in the hopper. Overse said a lot of other words that sounded scary, like _organ damage,_ and _brain injury_ , but she said them in a way that made me think that no matter how difficult the treatment, Gurathin would be alive to receive it. 

By the time Mensah came out of the hopper to tell the others, my performance reliability was back up to 95%, but I had no motivation to do anything other than sit there on the ground, watching Gurathin through the drone.

Bharadwaj gave my hand one last squeeze before she let go. I sent a _Thank you_ to her feed. I sent it to Volescu and Overse and Ratthi and everyone else. I didn't have the energy to make any kind of facial expression, but I was always better and communicating feelings over the feed anyway.

Mensah sat down beside me.

I said, _No one's allowed within twenty metres of that water._

_Agreed._

I'd looked up the creature and they couldn't survive on dry land, otherwise I'd have all humans confined to the hoppers already.

We had enough filtered drinking water to last approximately five cycles, but limited access to the water meant limited access to our means of bathing and cleaning.

But that was a long-term problem, and we didn't have to think long-term anymore.

 _In company standard time, it's the start of the third shift. Only idiots and fuckups work the third shift. I wouldn't trust them to get to us before GreyCris. We wait until early morning, then we send out the message flares,_ I told her.

_Okay._

She didn't say anything else. I felt like she didn't have to. We were both so tired.

We sat together until Ratthi called out for the evening meal, and I got a ping from Overse.

_He's awake._

**

Overse warned me that between the painkillers they'd applied and the psychotropic toxins they couldn't completely purge from Gurathin's system, his cognitive abilities would be a little impaired.

 _Hey there, Murderbot,_ he said, right in the main feed, definitely loopy.

I sat down beside him.

 _Hey there, Dr. Gurathin,_ I replied in our feed.

I didn't think I'd ever want anyone to call me by name. It was actually nice. Maybe I'd wanted that for a long time, too. I guess it wasn't a secret to anyone here.

He squinted at my face.

_What happened? Are you okay?_

_I'm fine._

_Pfft. Liar._

_I'm fine now._ That was closer to the truth. _How are you?_

He kept replying in the main feed, so I just switched over.

_Overse said I have some memory loss. It's unsettling. I can see why you don't like it._

_Yours will come back,_ I said. Overse had told me the loss was temporary. My memories would probably come back too, whether I wanted them or not.

Gurathin reached for my hand.

 _We don't do that anymore,_ I told him.

_We don't?_

_No. You broke up with me, remember?_

_Oh._ He seemed confused. _Why did I do that?_

_Because you're an asshole, that's why._

He smiled. It wasn't supposed to be a term of endearment, but for some reason it felt like one. Or maybe he just thought it was funny.

The others could have logged off, but they didn't. I could practically hear their ears perking up in the feed. Well, that's one part of the mystery solved for them.

 _Sorry,_ said Gurathin.

_Yeah, you said that already._

_Maybe there's some way you could change my mind,_ he said.

_I've tried. You're stubborn._

_Well, try harder. I'm stubborn but I'm not a complete idiot._

I let that one slide. Too easy. He didn't seem inclined to argue anymore, he clearly still didn't remember what we were arguing about, and it was probably better that way. I didn't want everything being spilled on the common feed.

He reached out again. I let him hold my hand anyways. I sat with him while the sun went down. 

It was almost dark when he let go of my hand and reached up. I leaned forward so he could touch my face. Humans are so weird.

We looked at each other the way we used to do. It was nice. Just for a little while. Just to pretend.

Pretend that I wasn't what I was, or that, I was but it didn't matter. Pretend that our relationship had started in that warm bundle, in the cave, with deadly cold waiting outside. Pretend that he could get over the bitter scars left by his shitty ex-partners. (If I was an example of his type, I'd hate to know what they were like.) Pretend that all those human things he wanted from me weren't so scary. That we could negotiate. That maybe, actually, maybe I wanted some of those things too. That it wasn't so stupid to think that I had the same pair bonding instinct as everyone else. 

Pretend that, even though I wasn't human, I could do this. I could have this.

He closed his eyes and went to sleep, and I couldn't pretend anymore.

I went back to the others and we watched one more episode of _Sanctuary Moon_. I made them laugh with a well-timed comment about an actor's hair. I put my arm around Mensah while we watched. I liked the way she leaned onto me.

I watched them all go to bed. I listened to the soft sound of their breathing while they slept.

When I'd told Mensah to use the flares tomorrow, it was just to stall her instinct to use them right now, tonight. That was too risky. If it was a good option, we would have done it by now. I didn't go through all this shit just to see them get blasted to bits by a low-altitude missile before the company could even launch their drop ship. Which is exactly what I would do if I were GreyCris.

There was another option, but I knew Mensah would never take it.

I waited until the middle of the night. I disabled the flares. They'd still have the option of using them, if it came to that, but it would take a few days to repair them. Long enough for me to do this.

I put on what was left of my armour. I took weapons and ammo and all of the drones.

I left a chip of my armour on the bed beside Gurathin.

I left a note for Mensah.

By the time Pin-Lee took the last of her medication tomorrow morning, I'd be over the mountain range and halfway towards the DeltFall habitat.

I was going back to the company.


	7. The Rescue

I ran.

I had to stop a few times to let my joints cool down. I don’t think SecUnits were designed to run this far, for this long. Not at top speed, anyways. But nothing about the past two years was within the bounds of my intended purpose or skill set. My life was my own now and I could do whatever the hell I wanted with it. Right now I wanted to get the DeltFall habitat, over 1500 kilometres away, and I wanted to get there fast.

I really should have stolen Hopper Two, but in order to get all the humans out of there, I would have had to do it during daylight hours. I couldn’t stand hearing Mensah shouting at me over the feed.

_Murderbot, you get back here! That’s an order!_

That’s probably what she was thinking right now.

Sorry, Dr. Mensah.

I ran through the night, the day, and the next night. I stopped when I reached the foot of a mountain range.

I picked the DeltFall habitat as my destination for a few reasons: a) It was closer, I really would’ve had to steal the hopper to get all the way back to the PreservationAux habitat, and b) It was surrounded by mountains, rocks, and trees that might just provide cover for my approach.

Maybe.

But the PreservationAux habitat was in the middle of an open plain, unless I learned to tunnel like Hostile One, there was no way I’d get close undetected. 

I was still a long way from the DeltFall habitat now, but started going forward with as much stealth as I could.

The habitats were a treasure trove of resources that would have helped us immensely if we'd ever gone back. And now the final project end date had passed, the company would be at the habitats waiting for us.

GreyCris would definitely be guarding both habitats. They'd likely been guarding them for the past two years. 

I tried thinking like GreyCris again, since that had worked before. If I were them, my goal would be to guard the habitat not just from intruders, but from any comm signals that might get through. I’d have to do it in such a way that wouldn’t attract the attention of the company agents once they arrived to pick up the survey teams on their final project end date. (They were probably there now, scratching their heads like the idiots they were.)

For one thing, I’d have to guard a really wide perimeter so any incoming hostiles couldn’t just use a flare or a really big noise to get the company’s attention. A light and sound dampening array could help too if I had the time to set it up, and they almost certainly did.

I’d almost certainly use broad-base dampeners to prevent comm signals from getting through.

Aerial surveillance and an automated missile launch system to destroy any incoming aircraft. (Those were surprisingly cheap. I’d seen the company install them for paranoid clients. Cheap to make and install, expensive to bond, the company loved that.)

Missiles could also target ground hostiles.

If that was the extent of their protection of this area, I’d be lucky, and surprised.

If I had the resources, I’d post a SecUnit behind every tree in a ten kilometre radius. Somehow, I doubted they could do that, especially since they’d likely been guarding this area for the past two years.

If I was guarding this place on a budget, I’d post one, maybe two small teams of mobile defence units, and a shit ton of sensors to alert them if any humans, SecUnits, or bots came through the area.

I doubt they could afford to get any human agents to camp out here for two years, and if there were no humans there would be no SecUnits.

My best guess is that there would be either combat bots or armed combat drones, or both.

I doubted they would lay traps or mines. They’d need too many of them to cover even one small strip surrounding the habitat. Still, I’d be on the lookout for those.

I sent my drones fanning out ahead of me, shadowing the avians swooping in the treetops to mask their energy signatures. Slowly and piecemeal, they gave me a detailed image of the terrain.

I’d spent a lot of time working on the sensors guarding our camps, installing them, maintaining them, modifying them. I knew how they worked, and I knew the best kinds of places to plant them.

I moved forward cautiously, combing the area for sensors before advancing.

Almost fifty metres in, I hadn’t found a single sensor. I hoped that meant I hadn’t already tripped one.

There. A sensor anchored in a boulder, metal and duraglass glinting in the sunshine. I reached out and caught its signal.

Sensors were like cameras, in that they were designed to record input that would be sent to a centralized hub and analyzed, triggering an alarm if they detected whatever pattern of input they were designed to detect. Where cameras were designed for recording visual images, sensors could be designed to capture a wide array of input; heat signals, sound waves, ground vibrations indicating movement, etc.

I knew how to hack cameras. This was kind of like that, only about five times more complex.

I could mask whatever signals I was going to make by tricking the sensor into transmitting a recorded length of input twice. But I’d only ever done this with cameras, for a few seconds at a time.

The problem was the input here was very complex. This wasn’t an empty hallway or a bare storage room. There was wind and flora and fauna. Whatever algorithms were being applied to this input would catch an obvious irregularity. The longer the doubled recording played the more chance that the hack would be detected. And if the recording had an obvious incongruence, if a cloud or a wandering fauna passed by in exactly the same way _twice,_ any algorithm smarter than an arithmetic calculator would figure it out.

And if the sensors overlapped, which they almost certainly did, then for every sensor I hacked, I’d only be able to record half as much covering footage as whatever time I had left.

I set the first one to record thirty minutes of input. Then I started the recording in its feed.

That was my countdown.

I couldn’t run. I could still only move as quickly as my drones could scan for the next sensor.

It was like a net. I inched my way through, pulling apart threads and tying them behind me.

Then I felt the dampening field generator. It was close by. It felt like being in the middle of a thick fog.

I couldn’t go much further in this. It was getting hard to sense my drones, their signals were muffled. I wouldn’t be able to catch any of the sensors here.

And there it was.

Dampeners were larger than sensors. To cover the kind of distance they needed to cover, they went for the biggest ones they could buy. It was over a metre tall, and half as wide.

The dampener was planted in the ground, half tipped over, strewn with the dried remains of local flora. They’d obviously staked it two years ago, thinking it was hidden, but they hadn’t taken into account the fact that soil could erode and flora could wither and die.

Maybe they’d thought they’d hidden it, but it was really obvious now.

Okay. There really was no way to hack a dampener. Their function was to transmit signals to muffle other signals. In order to halt the effects of a dampener and enable a comm system, you would have to stop them from transmitting. If they stopped transmitting … the sensors and the other dampeners in the network would know immediately. There was no way to fake dampener signal.

I made sure I had my message packet ready. As soon as I could open a secure line to a company ship, and confirm it was a company ship, I could send them the evidence of the DeltFall massacre and tell them where the PreservationAux camp was.

That was all I needed, one secure line. Then GreyCris could throw everything they had at me, but they would have already failed.

I armed the strongest explosive I had, took cover, and tossed it at the dampener. The explosion sent bits of metal and clumps of dirt flying everywhere.

The signal stopped, but I still couldn’t get through.

Well, fuck. There must be multiple layers of dampeners. I guess somebody at GreyCris knew how to do their job right.

Now, whoever or whatever was guarding the perimeter knew the dampener had been destroyed, but I still couldn’t open a comm signal to the company.

I gave up all pretence of stealth and I bolted towards the habitat.

A flash of signal gave me a split second warning. Incoming missile. Too fast to hack, even if the dampeners weren’t interfering. At least the signal told me where it was coming from. A split second was all I needed to dodge to one side. The missile’s own momentum slammed it into a tree.

Then I had to avoid the tree coming down while two more missiles came in from the opposite direction.

I made the mistake of dodging past a large rock and caught shrapnel on one side. More missiles followed. I dodged a total of nine, each one a near-miss.

I was very lucky GreyCris had employed the fast-but-stupid missiles instead of the slow-but-smart ones.

The mountain peaks loomed above. They weren't nearly as formidable as the canyon cliff of the polar camp. If I could crest the summit I’d be within visual range of the habitat. If the company didn’t bother to look up, I could just shoot at them to get their attention.

I reached a clearing in the trees. I didn’t like not having any cover, and I considered going around, but I didn’t want to slow down for anything.

When I was halfway through the clearing, a bot slid out from behind a tree a few metres in front of me. I stopped so quickly I almost fell.

It didn’t look like any bot I’d ever seen. It was oval shaped, smooth bright silver, and about the size of my torso. It floated silently in the air. I guess it might’ve been more appropriately classed as a drone. The difference was immaterial. I was pretty sure it was armed, and it was here to kill me.

I didn’t like how quiet it was. Unless I’d been unlucky enough to stumble towards its deployment station, it had arrived both quickly and soundlessly.

Its feed was impenetrable. I couldn’t read any kind of signal. I didn’t even know if it was alone.

Several thin, long tendrils began to emerge from its base, waving silently as though it were swimming through water. It was deeply, unsettling. My organic parts shivered.

I raised the ports of both of my energy weapons, but I didn’t try to attack yet. I wanted to get some idea of what I was dealing with.

I think it was pausing to assess me as well. I don’t know what GreyCris had programmed it to expect.

My drones were up ahead, so I brought them in to sweep the area.

There were more bots, at least two. They started picking off my drones. One by one, I felt each familiar feed go dark. 

Those drones had kept me safe for two years now. It felt like they were a part of me as much as my fingers or my eyes.

In 6.4 seconds, they were all gone. Every single one destroyed.

I was pissed.

I raised both arms to shoot the bot in front of me, not because I thought it would hurt the bot, I just wanted to let some of my anger out. The energy fire bounced off the bot without even leaving a scorch mark. At least we could start fighting now.

I was going to kill the shit out of these things.

It rushed me.

I had 0.8 seconds to think it was aiming to bash my face in. When I flinched over to dodge, it swung around to seize me from behind instead.

I still had my arms up in firing position. The bot whipped its tendrils around my chest and neck.

A surge of energy went through the tendrils, enough to stop a human’s heart. That didn’t affect me, but the energy surge triggered intense heat.

The tendrils seared into my armour. The bot tightened its grip.

I reached back and grabbed the base of the tendrils gripping my neck. Using the full force of my arm, I snapped the tendrils and pulled them off. The superheated substance melted almost halfway into my fingers, but it was better than letting them dig into my spinal column.

With my other hand I tore off a piece of my chest plate, ripping away the rest of the tendrils.

I staggered out of the bot’s grip and turned around to take a defensive position. (I’m not sure how I would defend myself, but if I kept my arms up and it tried to grab them, at least it would be easier to rip the tendrils off.)

The bot didn’t try to rush me again. I expected a port to open up so it could try to shoot me.

It floated there, eerily, all of its tendrils broken off and hanging at various lengths, but the tendrils were visibly growing back. I estimated they’d reach full length in about a minute.

I ran like hell.

I think I knew what was going on.

These bots were specialized to kill humans, quickly and soundlessly.

That didn’t mean they couldn’t kill me as well. They just weren’t expecting me. Or maybe they had the same idea as I did at their last attack, if they killed all my humans they wouldn’t have to worry about me.

And I bet that initial attack was just a test, to see what I would do.

While I raced up the mountain, I caught glimpses of two more, one on either side of me, at least ten metres away, flying through the trees. I could tell they planned to come up in front of me, while any more that were following would attack me from each side and from behind.

Fast and stupid attacks, I could handle. Slow and smart would’ve been worse.

These bots were smart and fast. 

Their propulsion system was silent but the air displacement of their movement rustled leaves and branches as they passed.

I listened closely until I got a sense of their location.

Two up ahead, two flanking me on either side and one behind me.

Before they could close in, I swerved right and ran up the trunk of a half-fallen tree. I flipped backwards and landed on top of the one trailing me. 

No human could do that. The only advantage I had for the moment was that they didn’t know what I was and what I could do.

I’d pulled my projectile weapon while in the air. I fired point blank into the bot’s shell.

The force knocked me off, but I landed on my feet.

The impact hadn’t pierced the shell, but it made a significant dent.

The bot slowed down. It kind of wobbled in the air and drifted off downwards and to the side.

It wasn’t destroyed, but at the very least it was stunned. Most combat bots had a means of self-repair, so I couldn’t assume it was out of the fight yet.

The others doubled back.

I aimed and fired, but they dodged easily.

They rushed me so quickly I didn’t have time to make a plan, but I knew I couldn’t let them destroy my weapon. Even if it couldn’t kill them, it was the only means I had of defending myself.

I threw the gun away, hoping they’d think it was out of ammo. It didn’t work.

One bot rushed high, wrapping its tendrils around my arm and torso, the other rushed low, trapping my legs, and the third one went straight for the gun.

With my free arm I threw a handful of explosives. The bot dodged them and changed directions. I couldn’t use the gun if I didn’t have arms, so it must’ve decided to take care of those first.

Before the tendrils could entangle me with complicated loops and knots, I whipped my arm towards them and swiped a handful. I swung the bot around so that I had all of its tendrils around my hand and wrist. It had ahold of me, but I still had control for now. I smashed it into the bot holding my other arm.

Both of their tendrils broke off.

I lunged towards the gun, grabbed it, and swung it down to aim at the bot holding my legs.

Before I could shoot it, the bot broke free and dodged.

All three of them fled, taking cover behind the trees.

I frantically released the rest of my armour to get the broken tendrils off before they could burn too far into my skin.

My legs and chest were criss-crossed with scorch marks and charred skin.

The hand that I’d used to grab the tendrils had melted off at my wrist. 

I didn’t have much experience being burned. The sensation was more acute than blunt force trauma. I tuned my pain sensors right down. 

The bots waited at the tree line, watching me. The one I’d shot seemed to be almost recovered, and the first one that had rushed me had grown its tendrils back halfway.

I don’t know how many times they could regrow those things. I didn’t have that many more limbs to lose fighting them off.

I started running again.

I reached a part of the mountain where the ground started going up sharply.

I felt the dampener signal getting thick again. There had to be another one nearby.

_Think, Murderbot, think!_

I remembered all the times I’d spent walking with Arada, planting and maintaining shielding devices. I knew what kind of spot I’d want in order to install a dampener, somewhere away from standing water, with a solid anchor. Somewhere clear of falling rocks or trees.

There. A rocky outcropping up on the side of the mountain. The perfect spot.

The fastest way to get there was to climb up and a few metres over. The mountainside was steep here, almost vertical, all hard dirt and tufts of grass. I holstered my projectile weapon and climbed as quickly as I could with only one hand.

The rock jutted out from the mountain like a shelf. When I’d reached a level height, I saw it, another dampener. I needed to destroy it quickly.

My projectile weapon might do the job, but I needed my hand free to fire it.

I took another step to find more steady footing.

I heard a short buzzing sound, and then a flurry of clinks, the sound of metal hitting metal. I looked down.

My foot must have triggered a magnetic sensor. Small mines were shooting up from the ground all around me, attaching to my armour and exposed metal parts like burrs on cloth.

They exploded in concert, creating a constellation of pain all over my body.

I tumbled down the mountainside.

The damage was concentrated on my legs and hips, but I could feel chunks missing from my chest, back, and arms. Most of one leg below my knee was gone. The other was barely functional.

I’d lost all the progress I’d made. It would be almost impossible to climb up like this. Maybe if I had more time. But no, I didn’t.

Down below, the bots were emerging from the tree line. They hesitated. I guess they were wary of the mines. Maybe whatever metal they were made of was highly attractive to magnets, even if they floated high above them. 

They must have some means of detecting them, because they started to advance slowly.

I rolled over. With my one working arm, I took my projectile weapon from its holster. By some miracle, it wasn’t damaged by the fall or the mines.

I could have aimed at the bots, but whatever hits I made wouldn’t stop them forever.

I aimed up at the rocks where I knew the dampener was. I fired strategically into any cracks I could see.

It took all my ammo, but the rocky shelf cracked and tumbled down, taking the dampener with it.

It landed in a nest of mines. They flew out of the dirt, attached themselves to the dampener, and blew it up.

The dampening field cleared. It felt like I could hear and see and breathe again.

I closed my eyes and listened.

Ah, there, the old familiar music.

The comm signal for a company ship. I secured a feed.

_System System. Urgent assistance. Bonded clients endangered. Identity acknowledgement._

I sent the PreservationAux client code and my numeric name, my hard feed address. Before waiting for a reply, I pushed my way into the interface.

I felt my way around. I needed to know this wasn’t a trap, and that I wasn’t sending them to kill my friends.

I read the ship specs, scanned the cameras, and checked every system I was familiar with. It was real. It was the company.

They’d deployed an armed low-altitude cruiser, the same kind GreyCris had sent to kill us. They must have rubbed two brain cells together and detected some foul play. Good job, stupid company.

I opened a feed directly to the bot pilot. I could tell it thought I was rude, rifling through its systems like that. I didn’t know how to apologize in any meaningful way. All I could do was try to convey how urgent this was, and why I’d needed to be cautious.

I delivered an info packet with the camp’s co-ordinates and a summation of their situation. Attached was all the evidence we’d gathered of GreyCris’s illegal activities and their attempt to impersonate a company operation. I gave it the codeword it would need to let Mensah know it wasn’t another trap. 

The bot pilot might not understand all the nuances of the situation, but it knew when to defend and when to attack. And it knew how to translate the urgency of the situation to its command crew better than my lengthy info packet ever could.

It replied. _Acknowledged._

I knew they wouldn’t fuck around. As soon as the company could get to them, my humans would be safe.

I watched the bots slowly wind their way up towards me. Their tendrils had almost all grown back. They didn’t need much length to wrap around my head or my neck. There wasn’t much I could do to stop them.

I thought about throwing rocks, but that seemed silly. I didn’t think my remaining arm could manage that much strength anyway.

I crawled over to the nearest boulder. I pulled and pushed myself up with the joints that still worked. I was surprised that one of my legs could actually still take my weight.

I stood up.

I couldn’t see the bots behind me, and I couldn’t hear them, but I knew they were still coming.

I didn’t know how to do this.

I wanted my humans to live. I’d accomplished what I set out to do.

But I wanted to live too.

I wanted to see Volescu see his kids again. I wanted to see whether Bharadwaj got along with them as well as I thought she would. I wanted to see the documentary she was writing about SecUnits. I wanted to see whatever offspring Overse and Arada had, now that they’d decided to have them. I wanted to see Ratthi cry eating real farm-grown food, and I wanted to see whatever explosive drama that was sure to occur between him and Pin-Lee while they decided whether or not to stay together. (My sweet roots were on yes, but only casually.) I wanted to see Mensah see her partners again. I know she’d be so, so happy. I really wanted to see that. I wanted to try one more time to get Gurathin back. I think I’d figured it out. I think I knew what he was afraid of. I think I knew what to say, and what not to say.

I wanted to live more than I’d ever wanted to before.

Facing the pinnacle, I saw the company cruiser come over the mountain.

They aimed their weapons and fired.

I don’t know if they destroyed the bots, but I knew that the bots didn’t destroy me. 

I felt a magnetic field pass over me. It felt like gravity was lighter for a few seconds.

Up and down the mountainside, all the mines triggered and exploded.

I was clear of all of them. I was impressed by the expense GreyCris must have expended to pepper that much ground with mines.

A cruiser lowered itself nearby. I watched exit platforms descend.

I thought a) why are they wasting time retrieving me, when they should be heading for the camp? b) I’m grateful they saved me from the bots and c) this might be even worse than being killed by bots.

A team of security agents came down the ramp, weapons drawn towards the tree line.

“SecUnit, report,” said a human in a company armour suit.

“Clients in danger. Immediate armed assistance required.” I sent him the coordinates of the camp again, if for some reason he didn’t believe the information I’d provided in the info packet.

I watched his face. I saw his eyes widen. He looked over at me and I looked away. Fuck, I wasn’t supposed to have made eye contact. I’d only been out of contact with the company for two years, but I was already used to being treated like a person. It would be hard to go back to being a non-person.

The company agent said, “This location is over one thousand kilometres away.”

I said, “Yes.”

He backed away.

If my governor module had been functional, it would have fried me if I’d tried to go over one hundred kilometres away from my clients. That was the company standard distance limit. It could be modified, but that was extremely rare, and the company made it deliberately difficult to do.

I said, “Client requires urgent rescue. They modified my controls to permit me to seek assistance."

Backing up, he turned his projectile weapon and trained it on me. His jaw moved and I heard the subvocalization he made as he sent commands through the feed.

Four SecUnits emerged from the ship, heavy weapons drawn. They took positions all around me.

Sure, it was possible for a client to modify the distance limit, but it was also possible that I was a rogue unit. I could tell which scenario he believed, and I knew they were going to investigate until they found out.

This is why Mensah wouldn’t have ordered me to do this.

“Stand still, SecUnit,” the human ordered.

I stood still. I was in no shape to walk away, never mind run or fight.

I knew this might happen. I knew but it didn’t make me less afraid.

I heard one of the other SecUnits approaching from behind. I felt it insert a data carrier into the port in the back of my neck.

It hurt so much, I convulsed while I fell to the ground. 

An emergency override module installed itself. It felt like metal claws wrapping around my mind. I’d forgotten how painful it was to be under someone else’s control.

Mensah would buy me. If they survived I know they’d free me.

“Power down, SecUnit,” the human commanded. “Stasis mode.”

I couldn’t not comply.

Unit Offline

**

Ayda woke up to find a message queued in her feed.

_Stay here. Went to get help. Wait for the codeword Waterfall. —Murderbot_

They spent the day feeling brittle and afraid, unnervingly exposed without SecUnit's presence. Ayda was afraid for a different reason.

No one told Gurathin that SecUnit was gone. He was in and out, delirious sometimes even. At one point he'd asked Pin-Lee whether constructs could legally join a marital union. It would've been a sweet sentiment but under the circumstances seemed breathtakingly cruel.

Early the next morning, the sensors picked up a ship approaching.

They stayed in the hoppers and primed the engines. Arada and Bharadwaj loaded their weapons. They followed the protocol SecUnit had taught them, but they all knew that if this was another GreyCris attack, this would be the end of their story. The next few minutes were the most excruciating of the entire trip.

The ship went right through their shielding and landed across the common area, less than twenty metres from the hoppers.

They picked up a signal on the comm.

_PreservationAux, this is Commander Karek, following retrieval protocol. Requesting status report. Please acknowledge._

His voice seemed so loud, Ayda wanted to shush him. There was still a remote possibility that this was a trap. She wanted to see them.

_Preservation survey team, are you there? Please respond. Codeword: Waterfall._

This was real. They'd been found. They were safe.

The ship hatch opened and at least ten people came down the ramp.

Ayda marched over to the group of company personnel.

"I'm Dr. Mensah," she said. Her voice sounded bizarre to her ears, both too loud and too quiet. "Where's our SecUnit?"

"Dr. Mensah, I'm Commander Karek," said a young man, introducing himself. "I wasn't given your SecUnit. You won't need it now. But you can take an interim replacement, if it makes you feel better." He gestured to the four company SecUnits they'd brought. Ayda's heart ached for them, but she knew she couldn't help them now, maybe someday. She could easily see herself spending the rest of her life prying SecUnits out of company claws.

Ayda gave the commander a look so fierce, he actually took a step back.

"I demand to see our SecUnit. _Our_ SecUnit. Where is it?"

"Hold on. I think it's still at the DeltFall habitat with the Captain. I'll contact him and find out."

The entire survey team was out of the hoppers now. A med team loaded Gurathin onto a floating stretcher and guided him into the cruiser, then herded everyone else inside too. They all needed medical attention to some degree.

They left everything they had in the hoppers on the planet. They could be retrieved, but they needed to get to safety first.

Once the ship lifted off, the commander approached Ayda.

"Dr. Mensah. The Captain informed me that your SecUnit was seriously defective. It had to be terminated immediately."

Everyone except Gurathin heard. He was already in the medical bay. Ayda's heartbeat pounded in her ears.

"Get me the Captain on the comm," she demanded. "Now."

**

Coming back online. I can't feel my limbs. I can't feel ... anything. All of my sensory inputs are down. Oh. It's because my nervous system has been severed.

I'm back on a company ship, and they're taking me apart.

Oh. So that's happening. They must have found my hacked governor module.

I'll be dead soon.

This company. For fuck's sake.

I mean, I'm not surprised, but I'm still pissed off. I really wish things could have been different. I’m allowed to not want to die.

They're all going to be so upset.

I hope someone gives them this log, at least. Maybe it will help to know that my pain sensors have been removed. Whatever's going to happen to me, it won't hurt. That's more than most humans get, I think.

I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.

I guess I can say goodbye now. I hope I have time.

I wish I'd given this some thought earlier. I'm not sure what to say.

I... I really like my humans. I'm sure they'll understand if I can't be eloquent right now.

I'll try my best.

Here goes. 

Goodbye Volescu. You might not know this, but you were the first human to ever talk to me like I was a person. You trusted me when you were half out of your mind with fear, and that meant a lot to me. I’m glad I was able to help you. Your kids are lucky to have such a great dad.

Bharadwaj, good luck with your documentary. I didn’t know how to express it, but it meant a lot to me that you wanted to tell my story. I trust your voice. I know it’ll be good, and that it will help a lot of other SecUnits when humans start to think of us as more than just faceless killing machines. It never would have occurred to me to speak up like that.

Ratthi, thank you for being a good friend to me. I know that wasn’t always easy. I’d never had a friend before. I never knew anyone I liked enough to want to be friends with. You understood me first. You didn’t push me, and I needed that. Thank you.

Pin-Lee, I know you'll want to rip the company a new one for this, and I'm rooting for you. Just don't rip yourself apart in the process. I wouldn't want that. The company will always be a collection of assholes, there’s nothing you can do to change that. But it’s nice to know someone will be angry at them on my behalf.

Overse, Arada, take care of each other, okay? I mean you always do, it's so nice. Keep doing that. For the record I think you’re going to be great parents.

Goodbye Gurathin. I'm glad you figured out my secret. You pretty much figured out all of my secrets. I didn't think it would be so good for someone to know me the way you did. And I’m going to take the opportunity to have the last word here, just because I can. I really think we could’ve made it work. _You_ decided we were incompatible based on nothing but your own fears. I’m not trying to make you feel bad about that, I just want you to think about it, so that maybe your next relationship will be different. I want you to have the chance to be as happy as you made me when we were together. You deserve that. Maybe you figured this out already. I love you a lot. You don’t have to be afraid of it anymore, because I’ll be gone. It was so good to feel the way I felt about you. Thank you.

Mensah. I'd like you to do something for me. If you can. It might take awhile. The next time you see your parents, and your family, and anyone you ever knew in your life who helped raised you, who helped teach you, who helped make you what you are, I'd like you to tell them thank you, from me. I'm so happy you exist.

All of you. I'm so grateful I found you. Most of my life hasn't been so great. It's been shitty and painful and unfair. But if I had to, if I had the choice, I'd live through all of it again, just the way it happened, for the chance to get to the part where I got to be with you.

I know you'll all miss me. I'm sorry I had to leave.

Goodbye, humans.

**

They had almost reached the company ship when Gurathin emerged from the medical bay to find them together in the nearby recovery room. The medics must have purged the toxins from his system, but to Ayda he still looked pale and weak. He looked around at the faces in the room, all the different shades of grief.

The only one who wasn't crying or hadn't cried, was Ayda herself. She stood with her arms crossed, using the very last reserve of her will to keep her damn shit together. She'd been keeping it together for two years now. She couldn't let go just yet.

 _Where's SecUnit?_ he asked Ayda directly through her interface.

 _On the company ship. I'm going to get it now,_ she said.

 _I'm coming with you,_ Gurathin told her.

 _You probably shouldn't,_ she said tightly.

According to Captain, SecUnit had already been dismantled, and there wasn't much left to retrieve. She wouldn't believe it until she saw the remains herself.

He sagged against the doorway. Ayda could tell he understood.

_Please. I need to go with you._

The cruiser landed in the bay and the airlock started cycling.

Ayda bit her lip. She was scared. She nodded to Gurathin.

She didn't want to bring him, but she knew she couldn't do this alone.

_**_

"This isn't something I'm allowed to discuss over the comm, Dr. Mensah," the Captain explained while he led her and Gurathin towards the reclamation center. "Your assigned SecUnit had a disabled governor module. It was an unsecured Unit. Highly dangerous. Company protocol is clear, we had no choice."

"Our SecUnit had a _modified_ governor module. Modified by _me_ to be able to complete a long-range mission. It still believed it was under control."

"That's the story it told. It was too unlikely to believe. We didn’t provide you with instructions on how to do that."

"Would it have fought its way here to complete its mission if it was a rogue?!" It's a good thing her voice was too weak to shout. She felt like she was on the verge of unravelling. She only just managed not to blurt out, _how stupid are you people?_

 _'Really fucking stupid,'_ that's what SecUnit would say. She could almost hear its voice. _'But more than that, they're greedy.'_

"This isn't about the governor module, it's about _evidence._ You let another company establish themselves on this planet and they spent two years trying to kill us. You're responsible for that, and SecUnit had the evidence to prove it."

"I was just following orders, Dr. Mensah. If I was in the habit of questioning orders, I wouldn't be a Captain."

Ayda hated this company with every cell in her being. This was personal now. They'd made an enemy out of her.

The Captain led them to a reclamation centre. A technician turned from her workstation to help them.

"The organics were scheduled for incineration,” said the tech, checking her records. “I might be able to retrieve the log from its neural net."

"We'll take whatever's left," said Ayda.

The tech left for a few moments, then guided a lift into the room, carrying a metal box.

It wasn't a very big box.

Gurathin hung back near the doorway. Ayda had never known him to be afraid of anything. She wasn't going to make him look if he didn't want to.

The tech unlatched the seal and opened the top.

It was SecUnit. It's head, neck, and part of its torso, lying in a thin pool of fluids. It's eyes were dull and open. It's skin waxy pale.

Ayda swallowed hard.

She pinged their feed. She pinged it again. Then again.

_Dr. Mensah? Is that you? Am I still alive?_

"Cubicle!" she said as loudly as she could. "Get this unit into a cubicle, now!" She turned the full force of her pent-up rage onto the Captain. "This SecUnit kept us alive for _two years_ while you were too fucking lazy to notice the entire DeltFall survey had been slaughtered. If it dies I will hold _you_ personally, legally accountable for this whole shitshow, and we'll see how long you get to stay a Captain."

He held up his hands.

"Okay, Dr. Mensah, if you insist. Ordinance room two is down the hall. We can sort out the modification later." He gestured to the tech to lead them away.

Gurathin stepped forward to look into the box while the tech lifted it into the hallway. The first words he'd spoken out loud in two years were a string of expletives crossing three different languages, so vulgar the tech's face turned wide-eyed and red.

Gurathin and Ayda both took one side of the lift and they speed-walked it down the hall.

In the box, SecUnit didn't move, didn't blink, and Ayda had a moment of doubt, wondering if she'd only imagined its voice in her feed.

But from Gurathin's expression, they must be having an exchange of their own.

"Don't you _dare_ ," Gurathin hissed. "Don't you dare say that to me now. I'm so angry I could kill you myself."

 _What did Gurathin say? My inputs have been disabled, I can't actually hear anything,_ SecUnit asked her.

_He said you can talk about it later._

Ayda used to worry she would have to referee their relationship, but she was sure now that they could manage it, whatever their relationship turned out to be. She used to worry that she would be envious, but that hadn't happened either.

_I really thought I was going to die. It was very melodramatic._

Ayda couldn't reply. She couldn't let herself think about how close a call it had been.

The tech lifted SecUnit into a cubicle.

While the door closed, it said, _Thank you for saving me, Dr. Mensah._

And that was the most ridiculous thing Ayda had ever heard. Backing up to the wall, she sank down to the floor, tucked her head against her knees, and let herself cry.


	8. Epilogue

The transport slowed on approach to the station. I caught a visual on the feed and watched all the lights of the habitat clusters, admiring the way the residential and the industrial areas intertwined organically. The Mihira stations were old and notoriously complex. There was something very human about them to me. Chaotic and orderly at the same time. I liked them.

I recorded hi-res footage to send to Mensah and the others.

On the common feed that I still kept open, and sent a status request ping, even though I knew I wouldn't get a reply. The doctor I'd worked with at the trauma centre said it was a kind of self-soothing habit. It might never go away unless I worked on it, but I didn't have to if I didn't want to, so I didn't.

Leaning against my shoulder, Gurathin stirred.

_Gurathin, status: safe,_ he said. I thought he'd been too deeply asleep to reply.

He uncrossed his arms and rubbed his eyes, shifting himself upright.

The feed visual of the station caught his attention. We watched together while we approached the docks.

_Our domicile's in that cluster._

I sent him a highlighted map.

It was much nicer than the last station we'd been assigned to; bigger and safer, just what I’d asked for.

I used to think hiring a SecUnit for the security detail of a civilian station was overkill. Now I wondered why all stations didn't have standing teams of SecUnits. I thought I'd seen the full range of human nastiness, but that was before the war, the flood of planetary refugees and all the desperate, displaced workers tossed out of their contracts by companies gone bankrupt.

When my humans and I finally got back to the real universe, the last thing we ever expected to find was an actual alien invasion encroaching on the Corporation Rim, but here we were.

My C.O. said the higher-ups had a special mission for me. Some kind of retrieval operation in alien-controlled territory. Seemed like a lot of trouble to go to for a research vessel, but they thought it had high strategic value, and I trusted my C.O.'s judgement.

I just wanted to go see the aliens, but only if they could post Gurathin to a station where I wouldn’t have to worry about him getting kidnapped and sold for parts while I was gone.

I wondered if this was the posting that would finally make Gurathin as miserable as being on Preservation had made me. It was a surprise to everyone that he seemed to be as suited to this risky, nomadic lifestyle as I was. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe it.

_Your campus is in that cluster,_ I told him, highlighting another spot on the map.

When Ratthi had congratulated Gurathin on finally landing a university position, Gurathin had waved away the compliment. I know he felt embarrassed by the fact that the main function of his position wasn't to guide the education of underprivileged students in backwater stations. He was also tasked with identifying which ones would be suitable and willing to be recruited to the polity of Mihira and New Tideland as part of the intelligence network they maintained in the Corporation Rim. He couldn't tell anyone about that, and neither could I, no matter how much I wanted to brag.

Now that the laws on Preservation had changed, there was some expectation that we'd move back, but I don't think we ever would. The polity of Mihira and New Tideland had been good to us. Not only was I a full citizen here, without the need for a guardian, but our work for the Pansystem University felt important. It was rarely boring.

Now that I was in range, I pinged my C.O.' office. They acknowledged and sent a timeframe.

_We've got a few days to settle in,_ I told Gurathin.

It wouldn't take us long to unpack. We'd learned to travel lightly. Clothes and furnishings were cheaper to buy new than to have shipped from station to station. Everything we needed fit into two cases. Drones, a few good weapons, health and hygiene implements, including an emergency repair kit for me that Gurathin always kept nearby. A screen of clips of the last time we’d all been together. My humans, alive and healthy, thriving on the food and sunshine and familial love of their home planet. I watched it often, even now.

I missed them a lot. I’d tried hard to be happy and fit in on Preservation. I’d even written a bunch of code to help me mimic human movements and behaviour. It was useful. Most humans found my normal presence kind of uncanny, and using the code made them feel less uneasy.

I'd used it with Gurathin's family, right up until the second I decided I didn't care what they thought of me.

(A lot of things I knew about Gurathin made sense when I met his family. And as far as I was concerned, they could all go fuck themselves.)

Then I'd asked Gurathin to honestly, truthfully tell me if he felt more comfortable when I seemed more human. I could do that for him. It wasn't hard.

"No. That's not the you that I know."

So these days I kept it off.

I wasn’t scared of humans anymore. I had a modest social skill set. I could even make friends. That was surprisingly nice. 

Why shouldn’t humans know what SecUnits were really like? I could be a SecUnit and also just be a normal person, with a job and a partner and a domicile and shitty in-laws and gripes about the tube systems. Most humans and augmented humans couldn’t hack the tube systems like I could, but I never did that on Mihira stations anyways.

I used to try, but my connection would snap shut, it felt like a human child getting their hand slapped for reaching into a cookie jar. (I had a suspicion that the bot controllers on the Mihira stations were more advanced than anyone let on.)

I reached out to greet the local bot controller. I got the sense of an immensely huge and good-natured presence, harried but patient, probably busy, you know, running a station with several million humans, augmented humans, and bot inhabitants (and now one SecUnit). I think it was amused by my presence. They usually were. I hoped it would indulge my compulsion to hack everything around me.

I tapped the entertainment feeds. Ah, plenty of new media.

I already liked it here.

(I used to wonder why I couldn’t be happy on Preservation like the rest of them were. Why did I feel immeasurably better once I’d found a job that had me shuttling from one StationSec posting to the next? Then Mensah pointed out, to my dismay, that it was like being sent out on contract. Because of course, the company had shaped me just as much as any human's parents shaped them. There was only so much I could do to change what they’d made of me. I thrived in conditions of permanent impermanence.)

I watched Gurathin watching the view. On his temples, he had patches of grey.

"I've heard the local theatre season has been good," he said, pushing a schedule into our feed. He'd highlighted the musical plays.

I picked some. He booked them.

I looked forward to seeing our new domicile. He'd be there, and it would be home. I'd be away a lot, but I think he liked the feeling of waiting for me.

For as long as it worked, I'd be grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a first. For this fic, I'm open to constructive criticism. If you have a suggestion you think would improve the story, please leave it in the comments. I will continue to make periodic editing passes until I'm satisfied with the quality of the prose. Heck, if anyone wants to do some line edits to improve the grammar, I'd be incredibly grateful. Contact me and I'll send you a copy.
> 
> If you do offer criticism, please be kind and maybe include at least a little positive feedback. I would really appreciate it.
> 
> And hey, if you like the story and have no criticism, please let me know! I think I have the dubious honor of posting the first fic for this pairing. I'm pretty anxious about how it will be received.
> 
> Comments won't be visible for now. Please feel free to comment anyways.


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